You may do this in groups or alone. If you do it in groups, everyone in the group must submit their own copy of the answers, along with the names of any group members.
Today we will be using the program Stellarium. On campus computers this can be accessed by going to https://citrix.southseattle.edu. You should not download the “receiver” since it is installed on campus computers, but you may need to click “open links with Citrix Receiver” and agree to terms. Here’s what IT says about using Citrix on campus. With logging in, Citrix may work off campus as well.
At home, you can download and install Stellarium directly from http://www.stellarium.org/ (Links to an external site.)
As long as you click the official download links (and not any ads posing as download links), this is a safe piece of software.
You can also use the free app “Sky Eye” to do this assignment, but I prefer Stellarium on a computer. Here’s a picture of Sky Eye.
I have created a worksheet that has only the questions from the lab below, record your answers in that document as you work through this lab. I encourage you to work together if you know anyone in the class, or can coordinate to be in a chat or on Google Hangouts together at the same time. Record the names of any partners you worked with directly.
Worksheet: Stellarium Lab 01 Worksheet.docx
Launch the Stellarium program. When the program has loaded, your screen should show you located in a field of grass, facing south. You have two toolbars that you activate by moving the mouse over their locations.
At the left edge of the window, towards the bottom, you will find a vertical toolbar with configuration windows for setting location, date, and viewing options. There is a horizontal toolbar along the bottom left edge as well. This has toggles for the most common viewing options, as well as time controls. You can spend a few minutes clicking around, just to see what this button or that toggle does. Note that scrolling zooms in and out. If you get stuck in a green or black screen, try scrolling.
There are several systems that can be used to locate objects in the sky. We will distinguish here between two coordinate systems: azimuth/altitude (Az/Alt) and right ascension/declination (RA/DE). Either one of these systems is analogous to using x- and y-coordinates on a piece of graph paper. They are two dimensional systems, which means that they can tell you where to look in the sky to find an object, but not how far away that object is from the Earth.
Adapted from: NJ Getson, University of Central Arkansas https://faculty.uca.edu/njaustin/PHYS1401/Laboratory/stellarium.pdf
You may do this in groups or alone. If you do it in groups, everyone in the group must submit their own copy of the answers, along with the names of any group members.
I’ve created a worksheet where you can fill in the answers for the instructions below, or you can make your own: Stellarium Worksheet 2
Pick an interesting object in tonight’s sky from this list: Venus, Mizar (and Alcor), Ursa Major (The Big Dipper), Altair, Vega, Deneb, Delphinus, Jupiter, Arcturus, or the Moon (you will need to observe the exact same night you record coordinates if you choose the Moon).
Open Stellarium. Set the location to Seattle, and the time to tonight. Find your object.
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