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Baade's Window

Area of the sky that acts as a largely unobscured viewing window to the Cosmos as seen from Earth due to low amounts of interstellar interference

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 23, 2026
Entity authorityQ2502667 ↗
Source-derived summary

Baade's Window is an area of the sky with relatively low amounts of interstellar dust along the line of sight from Earth. This area is considered an observational "window" as the normally obscured Galactic Center of the Milky Way is visible in this direction. This makes the apparent Large Sagittarius Star Cloud visible.

It is named for German astronomer Walter Baade, who first recognized its significance. This area corresponds to one of the brightest visible patches of the Milky Way. It is centered at a galactic longitude (l) of 1.02° and a galactic latitude (b) of -3.92°, which corresponds to a right ascension of 18h 03m 32.14s and a declination of -30d 02m 06.96s, in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius.

History

Walter Baade observed the stars in this area in the mid-1940s using the 100-inch (2.5 m) Hooker telescope at Mount Wilson Observatory in California while searching for the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Up until this time the structure and location of the galactic center was not known with certainty.

In 2006, the Sagittarius Window Eclipsing Extrasolar Planet Search (SWEEPS) conducted an astronomical survey to monitor 180,000 stars for seven days to detect extrasolar planets via the transit method.

Significance

Baade's Window is frequently used to study distant central bulge stars in visible and near-visible wavelengths of light.

Editorial summary

“Baade's Window” enters the record as area of the sky that acts as a largely unobscured viewing window to the Cosmos as seen from Earth due to low amounts of interstellar interference. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Baade's, Window and Area can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2006—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Baade's, Window and Area.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Baade's Window” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Baade's, Window and Area provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2502667. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2006.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Baade's Window” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.