This is a pannable and zoomable face-on map of the Milky Way galaxy within about 800 pc (2600 ly) of the Sun. It is derived from density isosurfaces of subsets of the 1069480 stars that had relatively low error measurements (error/parallax < 0.2) in the Tycho-Gaia Astrometric Solution (TGAS) star parallax catalog released as part of Gaia DR1.
The blue "hot" isosurfaces are computed using the 20 thousand low error stars with colour index <= 0 and a gaussian normal with a sigma of 15 parsecs. The green "bright" isosurfaces are computed using the 400 thousand low error stars with absolute magnitude <= 3 and a gaussian normal with a sigma of 5 parsecs.
The dust surfaces were kindly provided by Lucky Puspitarini and are from research published in Lallement, R., Vergely, J. L., Valette, B., Puspitarini, L., Eyer, L., & Casagrande, L. (2014). 3D maps of the local ISM from inversion of individual color excess measurements. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 561, A91.
The direction of the centre of the galaxy is towards the top of the map.
You can use the controls at the upper right to select the isosurfaces to display, turn the dust view off or on and select general map or more detailed isosurface labels. Beneath the search box are two options:
At the upper left are controls to zoom in and out and return to the home view.
You can also move left, right, up and down by dragging your mouse, using the arrow keys, or using the WASD keys. You can zoom in and out using the + and - keys or your mouse wheel.
Clicking or tapping will zoom into the current position. Double clicking/tapping will move the map to the current location of the tap or mouse pointer.
The galactic longitude and distance from the Sun along the galactic plane of the current mouse pointer location appear at the lower left.
The isosurface labels list the identifier, a name, the distance of the centre of the isosurface in parsecs from the galactic plane, and the number of low error stars / bright stars / hot stars located within the isosurface.
The names given to the isosurfaces and other map regions, while often inspired by ancient Greek or other star mythology, are purely my own invention. They exist largely to help me remember where the isosurfaces occur on the map and should not be treated very seriously. Only the International Astronomical Union has the authority to officially name celestial objects.
Kevin Jardine
Galaxy Map