Introductory Astronomy Lab Starter With Stellarium

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Name:Date:Observing the SkyIntroductory Astronomy lab starter with StellariumAstronomy begins with looking at the sky. For thousands of years human beings have watchedthe sky at night, carefully noting the positions of the stars and planets, and how they change asthe hours, days and months go by. Until modern times, knowing the sky was a matter of lifeand death for many – such as for farmers and planting, or for nomads and migration. To makeobservations of the night sky easier over the millennia, people developed various names forboth stars and groups of stars, which are called constellations.Objective: In this exercise we will become familiar with the application Stellarium to simulateobservation of the night sky. We will see what stars and constellations, and other sky objects, arevisible, and try to understand sky motion.(To install Stellarium on your PC, Mac or Linux, go to www.stellarium.org. Check your schoollaboratory computer as well. Stellarium is also available as an app for smart devices runningiOS or Android but is not appropriate for this course)Current Location: Germantown, Maryland (or Washington DC)Current Time: 9:00 pm, Today – Pay attention to 24-hour setting in StellariumHighly Recommended: 1) Use a mouse, 2) Use partial screen view (see below).PART A: Your Local Night ViewStart Stellarium. Use “Current Location” listed above by going to the Icon Bar at the left-handside of the screen and find the Location window icon (shortcut key “F6”, in some linux it isfn-f6) and click on it. Scroll through the list of locations in the window until you find thecurrent location and click on it. If you cannot find your city then use either a nearby big city orinput the exact the latitude and longitude (you can do an online search). Check that the chubbyred arrow showing up in the mini atlas points to the right place – you could actually be settingin a different place like Paris without knowing. Close the Location window. You should seesomething similar to Figure 1 - the local horizon view. The default Stellarium setting usescurrent date and time showing time elapse (progressing in time).The 3 basic manual operations for screen view are:1) dragging the screen left or right to adjust directional view2) scrolling to zoom in or out of the view3) dragging the screen up or down for a sky-centered or a ground-centered viewThe bottom icon bar will pop upward when you move the cursor near the bottom. It controlsvarious viewing conditions and so let’s set some of them.- Turn on “Constellation lines”, “Constellation labels”, “Ground” and “Planet labels”- Turn off “Atmosphere” (shortcut ”a”) and “Constellation arts”- Turn on “Cardinal points” which shows the four direction marks (N, S, E and W)- The “Full screen mode (F11)” is recommended to be off so that Stellarium occupies onlypartial computer screen to leave room for other application display1

Name:Date:Drag the view left or right, but keeping the horizon view as shown in Figure 1, until your areviewing the Northern Horizon, marked by the red letter “N” on the screen. Scroll to zoom out toabout 50 FOV (Field of View) - you can find FOV value at Status Bar at the bottom of the screen.Q. Name a few sky objects in your northern horizon view that you can recognize or heard of.Click on the “fast forward” button (double arrow button - “Increase time speed (L)”) just a fewtimes until the sky rotates fast enough to clearly see star motions, but not too fast. Remember youshould be in a horizon view similar to Figure 1, looking directly at “N” at the center. If not, use the3 basic screen operations listed above to adjust.Q. Follow some stars or sky object that are moving very near the northern horizon “N” point. Inwhat direction or in what matter are they moving? Are they moving east-west, in the northerndirection, diagonally across the sky, or what?Figure 1: Standard horizon viewFigure 2: Sky-centered viewScroll to zoom out to 90 FOV, and drag the Northern Horizon “N” to the bottom of your screen.This way you are creating a “Sky-centered view” similar to Figure 2 but not quite full view. This isto make some quick observations and we will do more sky-centered views just a little later on.Q. Does the sky rotate clock-wise (cw) or counter-clock-wise (ccw)?Q. Are stars in the sky rotating at the same or at different rates? Do they go around a circle at thesame rate, meaning they will complete one rotation at the same amount of time, or not?2

Name:Date:Q. Observe carefully the sky and star movements. There is one special star right above northernhorizon that does not appear to move even as all other rotates. Click on that star and see the infodisplay shows up on the upper left-hand side. What is that star?Q. Some Ancient minds thought the sky revolves around Earth. Do sky motions (simulated byStellarium) appear to be consistent with and support this idea?Zoom back in to 50 FOV, drag the screen back to a local horizon view, but now drag the EasternHorizon “E” to the middle your screen.Q. For stars very near the Eastern Horizon, what direction are they moving relative to the horizon?Drag the Western Horizon “W” to the center of your screen in the local horizon view.Q. For stars very near the Western Horizon, what direction are they moving relative to the horizon?Now let’s go to a full sky-centered view as in Figure 2. Zoom out by scrolling until FOV is about180 . Then drag the horizon around until the sky is centered on the screen and North is at thetop. You should see the sky as a central circular region (see Figure 2), centered on your screen,with the horizon (North, West South, East in clock-wise order) forming the edge of the circle,and the ground as the surrounding exterior. The zenith, the direction directly overhead, will bethe center of the sky region.Move your mouse over the status bar at the bottom and to see the bottom icon bar. Turn offatmosphere off. Now you should see a sky full of stars, and perhaps some planets and asteroids.You have been forewarned that Stellarium exhibits the sky motion elapsing in time, and so if theclock is not paused you may find yourself getting strange answers later on as you work throughthis lab. So pause the time by clicking on the play/pause button on the bottom icon bar - a“right-pointing triangle” means time is elapsing, and a “double-bar” means that the time ispaused.Set for “Current Time” by clicking on the Date/Time icon on the left-hand side of the screen(shortcut “F5”) and adjusting the time. A reasonable evening time is acceptable.As you click on various dots in the sky (almost all of which are stars), a cross hair appears overyour selected star, and information about the star appears in the upper left-hand corner of thescreen. There's a lot of information here, including, on the first line, the various names of thestar. The first name listed in that top line is the common name of the star. You should not besurprised that all bright stars or objects have a common name as they have been seen formillennia. Let's start with those names.Find the three brightest stars in the sky (the three biggest dots) and click on them one at a time.3

Name:Date: What are your three stars’ common names? 1. 2. 3.Near the bottom of each star's information listing, the distance to the star is listed, in light years(a light year is the distance light travels in one year). What are the distances to your three stars? 1. 2. 3.You might recognize some of these stars. Each of these stars is part of a specific constellation,or area of the sky assigned to a particular mythical character, object or animal. To see the stickfigure outlines of the constellations click on the Constellation Lines button in the bottom iconbar (shortcut key ”c”). Lines appear connecting the brightest stars in each constellation. Toshow the names of the constellations, click on the Constellation Labels button (shortcutkey ”v”). Many of these constellation names should also be familiar. Name the three constellations that contain your three stars:1: 2: 3:As you can see, it’s hard to tell where in the sky one constellation ends and the next one begins.To see the official borders between constellations, go to Sky and viewing option window on theleft-hand side icon bar, then to the Markings tab, then check Show boundaries (shortcutkey ”b”). The constellations' boundaries appear as red dashed lines. These borders arearbitrary, kind of like the borders between states – but astronomers have agreed to define themprecisely, so that every spot in the sky (and hence every star) is in exactly one constellation. TheIAU now defines “constellation” as grouping of stars within a sky region marked by theconstellation boundary lines. See Wikikpedia for tion).To see pictures of the mythical characters associated with each constellation, click on theConstellation Art button (shortcut key ”r”) in the bottom icon bar. (It may be easier to see theconstellations if you zoom in or out and drag the sky around to re-center it). The associatedgroup of stars with the mythology is referred to as an asterism and is not the same as theconstellation, explained above as all stars in an entire region.What constellation is just above the Southern horizon at “Current Time” tonight? What aboutNorthern? To see constellation better, you may want to hide the ground using the “Ground”button at the bottom icon bar (shortcut key ”g”).Southern: ; Northern:What constellation is at the Zenith at “Current Time” tonight?How many constellations are in the sky at “Current Time” tonight? (count them!)Open the Search window (CTRL-F or F3, or FN-F3 in some) to help you find the following4

Name:Date:objects. Remember, once you've typed the name of an object in the Search window, hit Enterand that object will be centered on the screen. If the Earth hides the object, then hide theground. Find the constellation Ursa Major. Name two stars it contains. (Remember, click on astar to see its name.) 1: 2: Find the star Rastaban. What constellation is it in? Find the star Arcturus. How far away is Arcturus?Display the labels of the planets and the bright stars by pressing the Planets Labels button in thebottom bar (shortcut key “p”). If you don't see any planets labeled on screen, open the Viewwindow and, in the Sky sub menu, make sure there is a check mark next to the Show Planetsbox in the Planets and Satellites section. Close the View window. Zoom back out to see thewhole sky. Make sure that the constellation lines, labels and boundaries are displayed. Is the Moon out right now?If so, what constellation is it in?Set the time for 1 PM today, or 13:00 on 24H clock (press F5 or use the left-hand side icon bar).Again, make sure that you can see the whole sky by zooming out and dragging the sky around. Find the Sun. What Constellation is it in?Now let’s see what the sky looked like at “Current Time”. Enter this time and date in theDate/Time window. Find the Moon in the sky and center it. If you do not see the Moon, thenthink a little and ask WHAT could be hiding it? What bright, named star is the Moon near? What constellation is this star in? What constellation is the moon in on next day? (NOTE: Rather than re-entering the newdate information each time, you can simply press the “ ” key to advance the sky by oneday) What constellation is the Moon in on the day after next day? What about one more day later?Note that the Moon jumps around in the sky from night to night! (Bonus) What explanation can you come up with for this motion?There are many things to see in the sky besides stars, including planets, comets, asteroids,5

Name:Date:galaxies, nebulae, star clusters, and much more! The last three objects are called Deep SkyObjects. Each of these is a distant object much bigger than a single star and (almost)permanently located at a certain spot in the sky, in a particular constellation. There are manycatalogs of Deep Sky Objects, most of which were published in the 18th or 19th centuries,including the NGC catalog (the New General Catalog), the Messier catalog (or the M Catalognamed after French astronomer Charles Messier), and the IC catalog (the Index Catalog).Stellarium uses the NGC, IC and the M catalogs. To show the labels in the sky for the brightestand most famous of these Deep Sky objects, press the Nebula button in the toolbar at the bottomof the screen, or simply press the N key. The brightest NGC/IC/Messier objects are labeled inthe sky.Use the Search window (remember, you can access it simply by pressing the F3 key) to find andselect the Deep Sky Objects below. You may have to zoom in or out to see them and theirlocations more clearly. If the object is below the horizon right now, press “G” to make theground disappear. Again, information about the objects appears in the upper left-hand corner ofthe screen. The Messier number label, if available, would be next to the common name. What constellation is the Dumbbell Nebula in? What is its M number? What constellation is the Trifid Nebula in? What is its NGC number? What constellation is the Ring Nebula in? What is its M number? What constellation is the Pleiades in? What constellation is the Triangulum Galaxy in?Add a Glossary here (To be done after Spring, 2017)6

Name:Date:PART B: Star Naming MethodsThere have been numerous methods devised over the centuries to identify stars. The oldest andmost obvious way is to simply give the stars names. Many of these names have been around forcenturies, and many came down to us from the Arabs, who were the world's best astronomersduring the Dark Ages, when Western knowledge was almost wiped out after the fall of Rome.Reset the Date & Time to the current time by pressing shortcut key “8”, or by using theDate/Time window. Turn the ground on if it is off (shortcut key “g”), and turn the atmosphereoff (shortcut key ”a”). Make sure the stars' names are displayed by opening the Sky andViewing option window on the left icon bar and putting a check mark next to Stars in theLabels and Markers section of the Sky sub-menu. Before you close the option window, dragthe slider next to Stars to about halfway to the right. What this does is that stars of certainlevel of brightness according to the slider scale will become visible. Close the Sky and viewingoptions window. Pick your three favorite common names from all the named stars you see:1.2.3.The problem with naming the stars is that there are FAR more stars than names, and peoplearound the world can’t even agree on the names that exist! There have been several other, morescientifically precise methods devised to identify stars. The Bayer method, created by Germanastronomer Johann Bayer in 1603, labels the stars in a given constellation using the Greekalphabet, with roughly the brightest star in that constellation called α, after the first letter in theGreek alphabet (for example, α Orion or α Ori for short). The second brightest star is then calledβ, the third brightest γ, and so on, in the order of the Greek alphabet, which is α, β, γ, δ, ε, ζ, η, θ, ι, κ, λ, µ, ν, ξ, ο, π, ρ, σ, τ, υ, φ, χ, ψ, ωIn English, these letters are written alpha, beta, gamma, delta, epsilon, zeta, eta, theta, iota,kappa, lambda, mu, nu, xi, omicron, pi, rho, sigma, tau, upsilon, phi, chi, psi, and omega.The Bayer method is still in use today, but even it can’t account for all of the millions of stars inthe sky! In the 19th and 20th centuries, various exhaustive catalogs of many hundreds ofthousands of stars were made, including the BSC or Bright Star Catalog, the HD or HenryDraper Catalog, and the HIP or Hipparcos catalog, which Stellarium uses. These catalogssimply number stars. For example, Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, is also known as α CanisMajor, or HD 48915 or HIP 32349.In Stellarium, a star’s Bayer name is displayed in parentheses next to its common name. Thestar's Hipparcos (HIP) catalog number is listed after the Bayer name.7

Name:Date: What are the Bayer and HIP designations for each of the stars you wrote down above?a. Star name:Bayer letter:HIP Number:b. Star name:Bayer letter:HIP Number:c. Star name:Bayer letter:HIP Number: What are the Bayer & HIP designations for the star Kocab or Kochab (in theconstellation Ursa Minor)? (Use the Search window to find it)Bayer: HIP: What is the common name for the star α (alpha) Ursa Major, also known as α UMa ?(Use the Search window to find Ursa Major, then zoom in and click on the bright starsin Ursa Major until you find it) What is the common name for γ (Gamma) Draco or γ Dra?PART C: Star and Constellation MovementNow that we are able to identify stars and constellations, let’s look at how they move over time.Zoom out to show the whole sky and center it on the screen, with North at the top of the screen.Press the Increase Time Speed button three times on the bottom tool bar and watch the starsmove. Remember, you can also do this by pressing the L button on the keyboard three times.Each time you press the button, time goes 10 times faster, so three clicks makes time go 1,000times faster than normal! Which way do the stars move as time passes? (W to E? E to W? N to S? S to N?) Find the only star that’s not moving. Click on it. What is its name? (Optional) Why do stars move the way they do?Display the constellations and their boundaries as you did before (press C, V, and B). As youwatch time pass 1,000 times faster than normal, can you find the one constellation that never setsbelow the horizon– in other words, it cam always be seem in the sky from the given “CurrentLocation”, no matter what time it is? We call a star or constellation that never sets circumpolar. Find one completely circumpolar constellation (in Current Location)?. Is it the only one?Press the Set Normal Time Rate button to let time pass normally. You can also do this bypressing the K button your keyboard.Change your location to the North Pole by opening the Location window and clicking on the8

Name:Date:very top edge of the Earth map. Your latitude should change to 90 North – the North Pole!Don't worry if you're not exactly at the North Pole – just try to get the Latitude to as close as 90 North as possible. Close the Location window. Now press L three times again to make timepass quickly. What do the stars do now? Now where in the sky is the star that doesn't move? (Bonus) Does this make sense? Explain.Press K, and then set the location for Singapore (open the Location window, enter Singapore inthe Search box, and then click on Singapore, Singapore), which is almost exactly on theEquator (Latitude 0 ). Close the Location window. To see the horizon more easily, click onthe Sky and Viewing Options icon to open the View window, click on Landscape on the top toopen the Landscape sub-menu, and then click on Ocean. Close the View window. Finally,press L three times to make time run 1,000 times faster than normal. What do the stars do now? Now where in the sky is the star that doesn't move? (Bonus) Does this make sense? Explain.Press K to make time run normally. Reset the location to “Current Location”, and set the timefor 12 Noon on today’s date. Press L three times again and watch the Sun move. Does the Sun move along with the stars? How about the Moon (if it’s visible)? Does it move along with the stars?You now know how stars are named, how they are arranged, and how they move as thehours pass. You’re well on your way to becoming an astronomer!PART D: Messier ObjectsBackground: Charles Messier charted 103 deep-sky objects during his observing career. Deepsky objects are non-stellar objects such as galaxies, nebulae, open star clusters, globular starclusters, and other objects that are beyond the solar system.Use the following 5 Messier objects – M1 plus 4 mor

Introductory Astronomy lab starter with Stellarium Astronomy begins with looking at the sky. For thousands of years human beings have watched the sky at night, carefully noting the positions of the stars and planets, and how they change as the hours, days and months go by.

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