Re: Space map Question

>Ok shoot me down in flames if this is just stupid.

Nah, not stupid. Maybe uninformed and in seeking of answers, but not
stupid.

>Has anyone got or knows where to get a picture of the milky way 
>with a big arrow saying you are here. (i.e. the solar system)
>I can take it it won't fry my brain to see myself alongside the 
>whole of our galaxy :)
>
>I don't want those pictures which are all lines and dots marking 
>stars. I'd like one of those nice representations showing the 
>spiral arms and giving some indication of our location within it :)
>
>Is that just too much to ask?

Nope, not at all.

I don't know of any such image/pic on the web (maybe Nyrath has
something
on one of his pages??), but you can find the information you are looking
for in most basic intro-to-astronomy textbooks (and I'm not talking the
'these are the constellations' or 'field-guide' types of books, either).
Look in the chapters on the Milky Way. Most have illustrations
indicating
where we are wrt the rest of the galaxy.

Now if you just want numbers, I can tell you that we are approximately
2/3
of the way out from the center of our galaxy (~10,000 parsecs distance),
and that our galaxy measures approximately 30,000 parsecs across.

(for any uninitiated, 1 parsec ~= 3.26 lightyears; the rest of the math
is left for you :)

Mk
------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
During the run-and-fight-and-run-again battle through this forest of
horror,
she is finally cornered. Her weapons have been left deep in the bodies
of the
slain or broken against the granite-hard scales of these snakes that are
not
snakes. Her stand to the death must be fought here. Though her only
weapons
are her hands and her deep and wide knowledge of the slayers, she does
not
fear them. They will die. Of this she is sure.