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Project 2: "Adopt a Constellation"
by Shelley Bonus
Level: All
Objective
To have fun and learn at the same time! Find your way around the sky season by season and constellation by constellation, as easily as you find your way home, neighborhood by neighborhood, street by street, home by home. Learn the various cultural myths associated with each constellation. Students should be able to identify as many Messier and NGC objects in each constellation, and do an in depth and systematic study of those objects. Students should learn how to use TheSky to make their session time on the TIE telescope the most valuable as possible. Teachers should review the constellations and assign those with interesting objects to students.
Discussion of Work
Using a calendar, identify the season, month, day and time you will be observing with the TIE telescope. Open TheSky software, go to the menu bar and select Input. Scroll down and open the section marked Date and Time. Click on the box marked Use The System Date And Time so that it is unchecked.
Next, put in the Date and Time for when you are going to be using the TIE telescope (Mt. Wilson is Pacific Time Zone), and check the Location, making sure it reads Current Location: Mount Wilson. Click OK. When finished with putting together the observing schedule, be sure to click on the box marked Use The System Date & Time so that it is checked.
Now click on the tile on the left side of the window marked N-S-E-W (it has a circle around it). That will give you a view of the objects in the sky at Zenith on the date and time you are scheduled to observe. Now go to the menu and find Labels, and select Constellations. At this point you might turn to a book such as Beyond Blue Horizons by Dr. E.C. Krupp, or 365 Starry Nights, An Introduction to Astronomy for Every Night of the Year, by Chet Rymo, and read about the various constellations displayed on the screen. Once you've become familiar with the aesthetics of gazing at those groups of stars, go back to Labels and select Messier and NGC Objects. This will display all Messier and NGC objects. Begin to make a list of all those objects that you'd like to image with the TIE telescope CCD camera, the SBIG ST-6, during the evening that you will actually be using the telescope.
Hint: For best results, and the ability to take the most images possible during your session, it is suggested that you select those objects to be high in the sky, preferable near Zenith, but no less than 35° N above the horizon, in the western constellations first. And then, going object by object within the same constellation, work your way across the black velvet, star studded skies above Mount Wilson.
Share your work with your family and friends. Assemble a wall display of the sky with various constellations that you've studied. Place the images that you've downloaded from the TIE telescope where they belong within each constellation, and have a story-telling party.
And most important of all...Keep looking up!
References
E.C.
Krupp, Beyond the Blue Horizon, Myths & Legends of the Sun, Moon, Stars
and Planets
R. Conselmagno, Turn Left at Orion
C. Raymo, 365 Starry Nights
R. Burnham Jr., Burnhams Celestial Handbook, 1966-1978
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