Looking for a detailed Milky Way map I am a UI designer working on a sci-fi strategy video game.
I was wondering wether anybody here might be able to help? I am looking for a top down projection of the Milky Way that labels regions of space. This is in order to start building a server map of linked 'matches'.
The space combat sim Elite:Dangerous has a galactic project split into 42 sectors (see attachment) although I know that most of the regions labelled are made up specifically for the game. Obviously I don't want to copy this, so wondered if there was a more scientific version we could base designs on.
Do regional maps of the Milky Way exist in science? Or is it purely a sci-fi thing?
It doesn't exist.
It is actually rather difficult to see the shape of the milky way, because we are inside it. The more distant parts are obscured behind the nearer and very much of it is invisible. (We think that a supernova would happen every 50 years or so in a galaxy the size of the Milky Way, but none have been seen in nearly 400 years, so even massive bright events are hidden).
There are rough maps based on radio imaging of neutral hydrogen, but these are fuzzy and have artefacts, making part of the map invisible and part of it seems to point strongly towards the Sun.  The well-know images of the milky way on Wikipedia are as good an artist's impression as any other.