What would the night sky look like close to the core of the galaxy?

Wow! Such an interesting perspective! Yesterday, a question was posted by Astrum Magister regarding the density of stars in Omega Centauri. Most of the sites given by the answerers gave not only Omega Centauri's, but also that of 47 Tucanae, NGC 6397, the solar neighborhood of the Orion Spur and some other objects. In one reference, it says there that close to the galactic center the stellar density would be close to 500,000 times that of the Orion Spur! Imagine that many stars! However, since most of these stars would be low metallicity red dwarfs, the night sky would only be noticeably brighter (and light polluted indeed) but the number of visible stars would not be like multiplying the number of stars we can see with the naked eye (here) by hundreds of thousands. Obviously, our locality is also dotted by red dwarfs but we cannot see any one of them. What would be obvious to us are the gigantic clusters, Arches and Quintiplet if indeed we are very, very close to the galactic core. I believe like the core of M31, there a few bright open clusters that are close to the galactic center. From there, unless you have infrared eyes, you wouldn't believe you live in a spiral galaxy. In that region, the motion of stars across the sky would be very noticeable as suggested by a few of them that traverse the local neighborhood.

Close to or bordering the bulge would rather be a different story since this is where the spiral arms and perhaps even where the bar terminates. It depends on where you really are. Given you are exactly in that place on a hypotherical planet, it would be wondeful. Half of the sky would be very bright while the other half will show you another side of a true spiral galaxy - intersected by gas and dust plus a few noticeable bright open clusters or OB groups. I'll add in more of what I believe I can see once I finish watching my movie...

Clear skies!

In my opinion, you are right. The stars in the centre of the galaxy are more closely packed, and they would seem to surround any planet. The darkest parts of the sky on such a planet would be like how we see the Milky Way from Earth - full of faint wispy light, but the rest of the sky would be full of stars, with a combined light of the Moon, or perhaps more.

It's possible that some of these stars might be big and bright enough to shine during the daytime through an Earth-like atmosphere, but that would still depend on the precise location of the planet and its sun. Even as far out in the periphery as we are, there are very large and bright stars that would shine in the daytime if only we were a bit closer to them.

Thank you for the mental image you have conjured up for me this morning : )

Even with the huge number of stars out there, you need to remember the even more huge distances they are away. The amount of energy we get from a star diminishes proportionally to the inverse square of the distance. (Double the distance, 1/4 the light...) Also the galaxy has huge bands of dust that attenuates the light even more. 70,000 light years is about the far side of the galaxy, not the center. In the directions where the galaxy arms are, we do see the night sky filled with this light -- we call it "The Milky Way".

The sky would undoubtedly be brighter.

There would be also a lot of danger, as more stars can go supernova, making the sky even brighter and eventually be a threat.

The Hubble telescope recently discovered a double star system with a least one planet orbiting one or both of them, in that case the night sky won't last long.

An interesting Question.

Though i remember seeing a television show on Notional Geographic that stated the that at the core of every galaxy, was a very, very large, (Supermassive) Black hole that was what was indeed holding the entire galaxy, itself, together with its gravitational pull. so, with that in mind, if you aren't already pulled in by the hole itself, i would think that from a planet near the center, you would see an very large amount of light, stars, and planets being pulled to the core by the black hole as well as a visibly brigher night sky, and other things...

An intriguing question, I ought to say. One thing is for certain, you get to see loads of redness. The galactic bulge is a dense packet of red-giants and red-dwarfs, and as their names suggest, they all happen to be red. You'll see many more stars than what you see here on earth. Just watch out for the Great and Mighty Sagittarius A*, a 10^8M supermassive black hole lurking beneath the colossal Halo.

HTH

For 'Swieudjh it seems there will be masses of Nikes orbiting and I am sure careening into one another. I imagine the laces could cause problems with tangling and creating an even tighter mass! ;)

Silent. great question!!!

Let us not talk of black holes. Ever since I've learned of them I've had the willies thinking about them.

you might read 'NIGHTFALL" by Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg...

http://www.majipoor.com/work.php?id=798

the planet was in close proximity to several stars, so that, it rarely ever was without at least one in the sky..... but every now and then, they were all on one side, and the other side of the planet experience NIGHT for the first time.... a scary thing for those folks....!!.....

i'd like to suggest that the center of the milky way has a hole peirced in it, so the milky way is actually like a ring, and that everything is kept together by the gravity of planets and objects on the other side of the milky way, and the lack of them outside of it.

This would mean that the sky there would have a streak running down the middle of it of stars and other planets.

This would mean that part of the sky would be dark as you look through the hole and out into space.

It would be bright and filled with deadly radiation.