Aesthetics of deep space images

[Infinite-Possibilities]

This is just a minor question bout the visual style they used really. The effects they used for the void between galaxies in Stargate Atlantis around the midway station and such were pretty spectacular. But were they what would actually be seen there? At first I thought it was weird that there were still little points of light in the sky around them since there were no stars in that region of the universe, but then I realized they could be the other galaxies. Is that what they would look like from there?

Also exactly how far away from the Milky Way would they need to be in order to have that image of the entire Spiral Galaxy sprawling out before them. If they are supposedly half way to one of the dwarf galaxies in the Local Group, shouldn't it be too far away to see like that? The Pegasus Galaxy is pretty far from our galaxy. And there are closer ones in our own intergalactic neighborhood.

Aren't there?

[Alx]

yes there are a few galaxies that are closer to the MW then PG!

[Mister Oragahn]

Well, you'd surely see the galaxy, but I don't remember if we saw dots in the sky, both in No Man's Land and episodes featuring the Midway station.

That said, I suppose that you could see dots in the "sky", when sitting in the void between two galaxies. There would just be a lesser concentration of them, and they're correspond to other galaxies. But that's pure speculation on my part.

[The Mastage Kidd]

Just on points of light, you would still see distant galaxies as points. To the naked eye they would look like nebulae or stars depending on their type and distance.

[Andru10]

Both the Milky Way and Pegasus would look only like points of light at that distance.
The apparent magnitude (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apparent_magnitude) of Pegasus as seen from our galaxy is mp = 13.2 (the smaller the number the greater the brightness). Brightness is inversely proportional to distance squared. Therefore at half the distance between MW and Pegasus, Pegasus would be 4 times brighter giving it an apparent magnitude of mp' = 11.695. By comparison, the apparent magnitude of Sirius is ms = -1.44 meaning that it's 179 579,9 times brighter. Yup, Sirius as seen from Earth is almost 180 000 times brighter than Pegasus as seen from the void between galaxies.
Regarding Milky Way, we don't know the apparent magnitude since we actually live in this galaxy so I will aproximate with Andromeda which is 2.5 million light years away and larger than MW and therefore brighter. It has an aparent magnitude ma = 4.4, from half the distance or 1.25 million ly it is 4 times brighter with an aparent magnitude ma' = 2.895. Guess what, Sirius (as seen from Earth) is still 54.2 times brighter. And this is in the approximation with Andromeda which is bigger and closer, MW would seem even less bright.

So both the MW and Pegasus would look like tiny specs of light from a distance of 1.5 million ly (half the distance between the 2 galaxies).

To understand the calculations, check the Wikipedia link

[chappaEye1]

Speaking of the Midway station, the outside was always lit up. What is the light source? I know it has to be lit up for the purposes of the production, but it's a bit like hearing explosions in space- it's just not possible. Explosions need air. Stars do not light up an object from 2 mill light years away.

[The Mastage Kidd]

Speaking of the Midway station, the outside was always lit up. What is the light source? I know it has to be lit up for the purposes of the production, but it's a bit like hearing explosions in space- it's just not possible. Explosions need air. Stars do not light up an object from 2 mill light years away.

The same thing that lights up Odyssey in the void?

[K^2]

Regarding Milky Way, we don't know the apparent magnitude since we actually live in this galaxy so I will aproximate with Andromeda which is 2.5 million light years away and larger than MW and therefore brighter. It has an aparent magnitude ma = 4.4, from half the distance or 1.25 million ly it is 4 times brighter with an aparent magnitude ma' = 2.895. Guess what, Sirius (as seen from Earth) is still 54.2 times brighter. And this is in the approximation with Andromeda which is bigger and closer, MW would seem even less bright.

You're off by a bit. The Andromeda most likely looks a bit dimmer than it really is because of interstellar dust in our own galaxy. From outside the Milky Way, it would look brighter. This is not uncommon.

Milky Way's absolute magnitude is estimated to be -20.9. (My own high end estimate put it at -23, so this seems very reasonable.) Scaled from 10pc to 1.5Mly, this gives us an apparent magnitude of 2.4. Granted, that's still not Sirius, but this is brighter than most visible stars.

Now lets talk size. Milky Way is about 100kly across. From direction of Pegasus Dig it would have roughly same appearance and aspect ratio as Andromeda has when viewed from Earth. From 1.5Mly, however, it would span 3.8° of the sky. For comparison, full Moon is only about half a degree across.

So in the absence of all other light sources, while not being particularly bright compared to stars we see around here, being the brightest object out there, and spanning such a huge chunk of the sky, it will look quite impressive. Yes, the artists in the show did bend it a bit too far. The MW isn't going to be bright enough to show such colors. But you will see some variation in color and you will see arm structure quite clearly.

[Andru10]

You're off by a bit. The Andromeda most likely looks a bit dimmer than it really is because of interstellar dust in our own galaxy. From outside the Milky Way, it would look brighter. This is not uncommon.

Milky Way's absolute magnitude is estimated to be -20.9. (My own high end estimate put it at -23, so this seems very reasonable.) Scaled from 10pc to 1.5Mly, this gives us an apparent magnitude of 2.4. Granted, that's still not Sirius, but this is brighter than most visible stars.

Now lets talk size. Milky Way is about 100kly across. From direction of Pegasus Dig it would have roughly same appearance and aspect ratio as Andromeda has when viewed from Earth. From 1.5Mly, however, it would span 3.8° of the sky. For comparison, full Moon is only about half a degree across.

So in the absence of all other light sources, while not being particularly bright compared to stars we see around here, being the brightest object out there, and spanning such a huge chunk of the sky, it will look quite impressive. Yes, the artists in the show did bend it a bit too far. The MW isn't going to be bright enough to show such colors. But you will see some variation in color and you will see arm structure quite clearly.

Thanks for the corrections .
But aren't Andromeda and Triangulum closer to Pegasus than MW ? That would mean they would be the brighter than MW and you could probably see their arms better than MW's.

[Infinite-Possibilities]

Well the midway station is supposed to be half way between the Pegasus Galaxy and the Milky Way right? So it probably would have been logical to think those 2 are the biggest galaxies in view, it just struck me as odd that they'd be so clear and imposing at that point in deep space.

The other thing is the Pegasus Galaxy is much smaller than the Milky Way. Shouldn't it appear smaller? Although if there doing creative license with the images I guess they wouldn't need to show it that way. I don't remember exactly but didn't one shot of the Midway station show a 180 degree turn so both galaxies were visible? Wikipedia mentioned that Pegasus was represented as an Irregular Galaxy (which it is, at least if it is based on a real one), but I seem to remember seeing two spiral galaxies. Did somebody else see that? Perhaps I remembered wrong. Anyone?

[K^2]

But aren't Andromeda and Triangulum closer to Pegasus than MW ? That would mean they would be the brighter than MW and you could probably see their arms better than MW's.

Yeah, you are right about Andromeda. I didn't think about it. They are both a bit further from midway point than Milky Way, but Andromeda compensates for it with its brightness. The difference is pretty small, though. Andromeda is only 25% brighter, apparently (older stars), and is about 1.6Mly from the point. So the apparent luminosity will be mere 10% higher for Andromeda.

Because of the larger diameter, Andromeda might actually end up appearing slightly fainter than MW, but both would be rather difficult to miss, and both should have visible spiral arms.

but I seem to remember seeing two spiral galaxies. Did somebody else see that? Perhaps I remembered wrong. Anyone?

As Andru points out, there SHOULD be two spiral galaxies plainly visible from that point - Milky Way and Andromeda. Pegasus DIG is not visible with unaided eye even from midway point.

[Infinite-Possibilities]

Yeah but should they be directly opposite each other? I believe the implication was that we were seeing The Milky Way and the Pegasus Galaxy when that happened.

[K^2]

Yeah but should they be directly opposite each other? I believe the implication was that we were seeing The Milky Way and the Pegasus Galaxy when that happened.

Yes, almost directly opposite. Well, more like 120° or so, but that can easily look like a 180° when camera pans.

Open up this image. It's rather large, so you might need to zoom. Scroll to the right to the Local Group portion of it. Look for Pegasus, Andromeda, and Milky Way. Find the half-way point between Pegasus and Milky Way and look at directions to Andromeda and Milky Way.

[BoingoInsanity]

From everything I have read, the Milky Way gates can dial a further distance than the Pegasus gates, especially considering that the Pegasus gates have fewer glyphs. The Ancients designed the gates to dial any address within the given galaxy, which I would take to assume to mean that the Pegasus gates would require less power as well.

So most likely, the Milky Way gates are spaced farther apart than the Pegasus gates, meaning that Midway Station isn't actually midway between galaxies, just the midpoint of the bridge. If I were to guess, I would take the width of the Milky Way, and take that to be the distance between the Milky way gates, excluding the farthest one from Midway Station, which needs to be closer than the width of the Milky Way in order to reach Earth, and the same for the Pegasus galaxy and Lantea.

Then using math that I am unfamiliar with, one could conclude the actual distance to Midway Station from either galaxy. Anyway, I found this page while looking for a starmap showing the Earth to Pegasus transit of the Destiny as displayed on the heads up screen aboard the spacecraft, and thought I would add my two cents. =)