Observing the Sky

Time

Evenings, depending on the weather. Watch this space.

Place

Outside - usually meet near the observatory.

Text

Peterson's Guide to Stars and Planets (Jay Pasachoff)

General Info

All students will be required to keep an observing notebook, and to do one major observing project. Everyone should be outside finding things and recording it in their notebooks at least twice per week: once with the class (the day will vary with the weather) and once on their own.

Your mission is to find, see, and record as much as you can, not only qualitatively but quantitatively. Try to answer the questions "how big", "how bright", and "where" as you observe, with clear sketches and notes. Our observing will be both both with and without telescopes.

I encourage you to keep up with what's current in Sky and Telescope, available monthly in the library. Since I haven't taught this before, I'm not really sure how it will work out. But it will definitely be a "get-out-of-it-what- you-put-into-it" kind of experience.

• Sizes:
  • at arm's length, your fist is about 10 degrees,
  • little finger is 1 degree, and
  • the sun or moon is 1/2 degree across.

• Brightnesses:
  • Jupiter is about -2 (very bright),
  • Big Dipper stars range from 1 to 3 or so,
  • Little Dipper stars range from 2 to 5 (6 is naked eye limit).

• Speeds:
  • everything seems to move westward (rise in east) at 15 deg / hour,
  • night by night, stars move eastward 1 deg per day (rise 4 min earlier),
  • Moon moves westward relative to stars about 1/2 degree (its size) per hour,
  • Planets move westward relative to stars at varying speeds depending on how long their year is.
• Things to find/memorize:
  • Big & Little Dipper, Cassiopia, Cephus, Pegasus, Swan (northern cross), Orion
  • north star, Vega, Deneb, Altair, Beetlegeuse
  • Pleides, Andromeda, zodiac, Jupiter, Saturn, Venus, Moon, Hale-Bopp

  ---

  Meeting Times / Places

  The class will meet once per week, on a Monday-Thursday evening, usually by the observatory, and usually around 9pm. Times and place will vary; check this spot and get your name on the email list.
  • week of 9/9:Tuesday, 9pm, by the observatory
    There was a bit of confusion as to when/where we were meeting this first week. Apologies. Monday was raining all day. The National Weather Service says "Tuesday night...gradual clearing." Cross your fingers.
  • week of 9/16:Thursday, 8pm, Sci 216
    Yes, I know, its been raining all week, and you haven't been able to do the first assignment. Let's meet indoors, talk about angles, magnitudes, the Voyager computer program, and the upcoming lunar eclipse, and see how things look. If the weather is OK we'll probably head outside around 9pm to see what's up.
• week of 9/23:Thursday, 9pm, Soccor Field
  It's a Lunar Eclipse! Be there or be square.
• week of 9/30:Thursday (yes, again), 6 pm, Observatory
  Let's take a look at the telescope and talk about how it works while there's still some daylight.
• week of Oct 7:THURSDAY, 8 pm, Sci Bldg
  It'll be raining or cloudy for most of the week, but we should talk.
• week of Oct 14:MONDAY, 10 pm, Observatory (dress warm!)
  
• week of Oct 29:SAT, 1 pm, my office (dress warm!)
  
• week of Nov 5:WEDNESDAY, 11 pm, Observatory
  
• week of Nov 11:THURSDAY, 10 pm, Observatory
  

Assignments

1. Over the course of the first few weeks, find, sketch, and follow the positions of
   • the Moon,
   • Jupiter,
   • at least 3 constellations, and
   • at least 3 stars, of different magnitudes.
2. Due the week of 9/25:
   • Read about the upcoming eclipse in Sky and Telescope
     (in the current periodicals room in the library)
   • Use the Voyager computer prgram to find a stars with magnitudes 1, 3, and 5 in constellations that you will be able to identify. Find and sketch them in your notebooks, and see if you can find other stars with similar brightnesses.
   • Use Voyager to study the coordinate system (RA, Dec; sky seperations & sizes in deg, arcmin, arcsec) commonly used to specify astronomical positions and sizes. Compare these with sizes you can directly measure, say with your pinkie finger at arm's length, or your fist at arms length. Sketch at least one constellation including its relative sizes, and RA and Dec, and explain how that position fits in with where you saw it in the sky, our lattitude and longitude, and the local time. (You may need to look in a general astronomy reference in the library.)
3. For early October:
   You should know know and recognize a half-dozen common constellations and bright stars in the northern sky, like the Big Dipper, Cassiopia, the Northern Cross, Vega, the North Star - like that. You should be getting a rough idea of size scales, and magnitudes.
   • Continue going out at least once per week, and writing in your book.
   • Here are some new projects to try:
     • How many zodiac constellations can you find?
     • What magnitude is the dimmest star you can see when you're out?
       (The ones in the little dipper and nearby range from 2 to 6th magnitude, so you can use them as an indicator, for example.)
     • Find the comet Hale-Bopp; on Oct 10 it's at about RA 17.5 hr, Dec -4.5 deg west of Jupiter. You can read about it on the Internet starting at The Silcon Sky, or just do a search in Yahoo for "Hale-Bopp."
   • Start doing some work with the small telescope (we're passing it around; Josh has it and Jesi is trying to get it) and the observatory (feel free to call me at 257-0857 if its clear).
   • Keep thinking about your term observing project - run ideas by me and start as soon as you can.

Participants

• Keith Cha (kcha)
• Trout America (trout)
• Anthony Preston (preston)
• Jessica Farkas (jesi)
• Erica Westly (jesi)
• Krista Kenyon (krista)
• Adam Hammick (hammer)
• Joshua Williams (joshdw)
• John D. Atkinson (johna)

Possible Projects

• Naked Eye:
  • How many constellations can you find / recognize?
  • How many stars? Can you estimate their magnitudes?
  • Where are the planets, and how do they move?
  • Where is the moon, and how does it move night-by-night?
  • How many comets can you count? Does it vary with the time of night?
  • Can you count & track the motion of sunspots? CAUTION! Don't look directly at the sun!
• Photographic; tripod & zoom lenses
  • the Moon
  • star trails / colors
  • other seasonal / time lapse / video
• Telescope
  • Planets, positions of moons
  • Messier objects - nebula, galaxy, other "deep sky"
    (Lots of possibilities here.)
  • Variable & double stars
  • photographic work (We may need to get some more equipment.)
  • CCD camera (?)
  • photometric studies (?)
  • spectroscopic work (??)
• Other / Special Events
  • Comet Hale-Bop : where is it moving, how bright is it
  • ?