Zoot Horn's guest entry

Zoot's an astronomer, as befits a Renaissance polymath such as he is. He provides this:

Here's what our Milky Way might look like from the outside - which is pretty much what it looks like from the inside too. It's the Andromeda galaxy, which is, I believe, the most distant object visible to the naked eye (on a moonless night, with no towns around, with averted vision, it's a tiny hint of light but pretty easy to spot). Part of our local group of galaxies (with 2 elliptical 'satellite' galaxies in the same field of view) it is, I think, despite the big bang, one of the few extra-galactic cosmic objects that is actually moving towards us. It's 2.5 million light years away. Which in miles is probably:

I86,000 x 60 x 24 x 365 x 2,500,000. Or something.

There aren't any buses.

Stars in your eyes

Just because it's astonishing: time-lapse video of the Milky Way over Texas. It gets good around 23 seconds, and the full-screen view is accessed by clicking the icon next to 'Vimeo' on the horizontal tool bar.

Galactic Center of Milky Way Rises over Texas Star Party from William Castleman on Vimeo.