Studying your local sky can be as simple as taking a pair of binoculars and looking up on a clear night, but there are also true experts who have poured the best of science and technology into this task, obtaining fabulous images and collecting a gigantic amount of data. Much of that material is concentrated in the Legacy Survey project, and its interactive map is not to be missed.
The SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System describes the Legacy Survey initiative (formally "DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys") as a combination of three public projects: Dark Energy Camera Legacy Survey, Beijing-Arizona Sky Survey, and Mayall z-band Legacy Survey. These projects conducted observations of 14,000 square degrees of extragalactic sky visible from the northern hemisphere in three optical bands, which in turn were optimized with four infrared bands from NEOWISE (Near-Earth Object WISE, originally Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer).
Legacy Survey: Millions of Stars and Galaxies, a Click Away
Today, the model has been expanded to more than 20,000 square degrees, adding public data from NOIRLab's Astro Data Archive. But the best part of Legacy Survey is that its official site contains an interactive map, which lets us explore the sky like never before.
The map doesn't have a very intuitive design, but its Tips and Tricks section definitely helps clear up doubts. Every time we load the page, Legacy Survey sends us to a random NGC galaxy. If we want to search for another object, we type its name in the "Jump to Object" box and press Enter.
If we click on the map, a popup will appear with different options, the most relevant being "Link Here" to return to that position at any time. The "Look up in..." function is also very valuable, mainly sending us to astronomical databases like SIMBAD and HyperLeda.
The amount of technical information in Legacy Survey is impressive, and on the surface it's not particularly useful for the average user, but the combination of the interactive map, filters, and the ability to enable/disable different catalogs in real time is more than enough to get lost in the sky without a second thought.
Official site: Click here
