Expert: Tom Whiting - 11/1/2007

Question
i live in the midst of chicago, so you can imagine the limited viewing conditions i have.
in the early morning, before dawn i can see perhaps 30-50 "stars" on a clear day.
i realize 1 or 2 may be planets.
but the rest, i wonder if they are all stars, or if some are perhaps bright and near galaxies.
thanks


Answer
Hi feiv,
Yes, 3 are planets, and all the rest are....stars, nearby stars in
fact, relatively speaking, since you are only good down to about 3rd magnitude in the highly light polluted sky of Chicago.  Mars is the reddish one high in the south at 4 am, while Venus, the brightest point source object, is very low in the east, while Saturn is in the SE.  All the rest of the bright stars are what we call the Winter Hexagon, the lowest of which is that bright bluewhite star due south, called Sirius, the Dog Star, brightest real star in our entire sky (except for the sun, of course.)  Orion would be higher to the Dog Star's upper right, high in theSW.  On early Sunday morning, the crescent moon will be roughly halfway between Venus and Saturn, so you can identify them.  

The only external galaxy we can see with the naked-eye is the Andromeda Galaxy....as a little hazy patch of light in the constellation of Andromeda (thus it's name) but it takes a reasonably dark sky to see it.  It would be
lost in the glare of city skylight in the heart of Chicago,
as would our own Milky Way galaxy directly overhead at that
time, too.  Not only invisible from the city proper, but many
of the Chicago suburbs too.  You'd want to get at least 50-
100 miles from the city, to see those things naked eye with our unfortunate heavy city light pollution.  Even in Erie, PA
we have to travel 20-25 miles south of the city, to see the
Milky Way galaxy, and the Andromeda galaxy.

So no, you aren't seeing any galaxies....just planets and stars,
and the sun and moon, of course.
Unfortunately, observers in major cities are limited to only
bright stars and planets.  ALL the deep sky objects, except
for maybe the Pleiades open star cluster, are all lost in the
grey skies of city glare.  You need a black sky, not a grey sky.
And it's just not one or two street lights doing it, it's the total sky glare of the whole city itself, doing it....so you have to...get away from ALL of it.
Hope this helps,
Clear Skies,
Tom Whiting
Erie PA