The Milky Way Trail leads to the Friedrich-Ebert-Gymnasium in Bonn
Extension of the hiking trail from the Effelsberg Radio Telescope to the Draco Galaxy
On July 2, 2026, another information panel for the Milky Way Trail at the Effelsberg Radio Telescope was installed at the Friedrich-Ebert-Gymnasium (FEG) in Bonn. The panel, which provides information about the Draco Galaxy and is visible from outside the building, identifies the school as a branch of the trail at a scale-accurate distance.
The Milky Way Trail is one of three astronomical hiking trails of different scaling at the Effelsberg Radio Telescope. Together, they allow visitors to experience the full range of cosmic distances, from the planets of our solar system to distant galaxies billions of light-years away.
The Milky Way Trail is a project of the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy and the Effelsberg Radio Observatory. It was established in collaboration with the Freundeskreis Sahrbachtal e.V. as a hiking trail with a total length of four kilometers in the immediate vicinity of the Effelsberg radio telescope.
With a diameter of 100 meters, the radio telescope is the second-largest steerable radio telescope in the world. The Milky Way Trail illustrates the distances to various celestial bodies on a scale of 1:1017 (1:100 quadrillion)—which corresponds to 10,000 light-years per kilometer. On this scale, the Milky Way has a diameter of ten kilometers. The distance of 25,000 light years between Earth and the center of the Milky Way, scales to 2.5 kilometers.
The Draco Galaxy at the Friedrich-Ebert-Gymnasium in Bonn will add another member of the Local Group of galaxies in the Milky Way’s neighborhood. The Draco Galaxy is an elliptical dwarf galaxy discovered in 1954, located approximately 260,000 light-years away. Its name is derived from the constellation in the sky where it can be found: Draco, the Dragon. This constellation winds its way across the northern sky between the well-known constellations Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, visible year-round from Central Europe.
The three external stations, including the Draco Galaxy, also mark the transition from the Milky Way Trail to another astronomical trail at the Effelsberg Radio Telescope: the Galaxy Trail, with a scale of 1 : 5 × 1022 (1 : 50 quadrillion). At this scale, the Andromeda system—including NGC 205 and Messier 31—is located in the immediate vicinity of the Milky Way, at a distance of just 50 centimeters. The two panels, “Milky Way” and “Andromeda Galaxy,” just 50 cm apart, mark the start of the Effelsberg Galaxy Trail, which extends over a total distance of just under three kilometers to distant galaxies several billion light-years away.
------------------------------------------------------------
Additional Information
The Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy has established a total of four topical astronomical hiking trails at the site of its 100-meter radio telescope near Bad Münstereifel-Effelsberg. Three of these trails—named the Planetary Trail, the Milky Way Trail, and the Galaxy Trail—cover the entire cosmic distance scale, from the planets of our solar system to distant galaxies several billion light-years away.
The Planetary Trail, on a scale of 1 : 7.7 billion, runs for a total length of 766 m from the visitor parking lot at the radio observatory (panel for dwarf planet Pluto) to the forecourt of the visitor pavilion, where the “Sun” panel is located. The Planetary Trail has a branch location 11,000 km away (equivalent to 8.6 light-years) at the MPIfR’s APEX telescope in the Atacama Desert in Chile, featuring the neighboring star Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky.
The Milky Way Trail, on a scale of 1 : 1017 (1 : 100 quadrillion), stretches a total of 4 km (equivalent to 40,000 light-years through our home galaxy) from the outer regions near the Sun to the galactic center. This trail leads from the Burgsahr district of the municipality of Kirchsahr in the Sahrbach Valley to a viewing plateau immediately in front of the 100-meter radio telescope itself. The Milky Way Trail has three satellite locations—the Andromeda Galaxy M31 at the House of Astronomy in Heidelberg, the galaxy NGC 205 at the Mannheim Planetarium and the Draco Galaxy at the Friedrich-Ebert-Gymnasium in Bonn—each in scaled distance to the Effelsberg Radio Telescope.
The Galaxy Trail, scaled at 1 : 5 x 1022 (1 : 50 thousand billion billion), runs over a total length of 2.7 km (corresponding to just under 14 billion light-years) from our Milky Way to distant galaxies and finally back in time to the Big Bang or the beginning of time. It starts on a forest trail behind the radio telescope and leads to the Martinshütte in the municipality of Kirchsahr, the “barbecue hut at the end of the universe.”
To mark the 50th anniversary of the 100-meter radio telescope in 2021, another hiking trail was added: the “Time Travel Trail,” which chronicles the 50-year history of the Effelsberg Radio Telescope across a total of 20 stations. It winds around the telescope for a length of 5 km, starting right at the visitor pavilion.