Free Guide to Naked-Eye Astronomy

Tammy Plotner, president of Warren Rupp Observatory, writes "Are you looking for all the best of what's up in the night sky for the year 2007? Then be my guest and download my free e.book — '365 Days of SkyWatching'! (Brought to you courtesy of The Universe Today.) Each day is specifically geared to give you the best of what can be seen with the unaided eye, binoculars, and small telescopes and even has challenge objects for seasoned observers. It's beautifully illustrated and contains many special features, such as anotated lunar maps. Please feel free to pass it along to anyone in the astronomy community and enjoy!" For anyone who'll be in that neck of the woods (central Ohio) next October, Warren Rupp's Hidden Hollow event looks really fun.

Comments

Very Cool

[wolff000]

This looks like something that will keep me occupado for quite a few nights.

Re:Very Cool

[wolff000]

I have been on slashdot for a while now and that was my first "first post". GO ME! yes uber geek right here, just hand me my black glasses /w tape in the middle and my pocket protector and I'll be on my way. Don't bother modding me off topic. I'll do it for you. **OFF TOPIC** -9999999999999999

SECRET TRICK TO SKYWATCHING!

[LiquidCoooled]

Even though the title says 365 days of sky watching, I feel I must let you in on a secret:

Wait until night time to do your sky watching, it will be better than staring at a blue screen ;)

Please note also, the police will not believe your story about downloading a book from the internet which told you to stand naked in the neighbours garden at 3am with binoculars and a camera (don't ask how I know this).

Re:SECRET TRICK TO SKYWATCHING!

[slughead]

Wait until night time to do your sky watching, it will be better than staring at a blue screen

Nonsense! You can see at least 1 star during the day.

For those who don't wish to click on the link, here's the article text:

Free Guide to Naked-Eye Astronomy
 
LOOK UP!

Re:SECRET TRICK TO SKYWATCHING!

[Kadin2048]

LOOK UP!

Why, to see if the basement's ceiling is leaking?

Free Guide to...

[Anonymous Coward]

Naked... WOOHOO! Eye Astronomy? What? WHAT?

Yay

[liquid_rince]

...en be my guest and download my free e.book -- '36...

Even though there is very little snow in Canada, it must still be Christmas. Someone's inviting all of us to slashdot them.

Maybe the subtitle should be...

[Assassin bug]

"Planet eye for the space guy". Or maybe not.

You'll need these

[chanrobi]

Although each day is fairly descriptive and tells you about a new object, it doesn't tell you where to find it. Here's what the book recommended:

www.astrosurf.com/astropc/cartes
www.fourmilab.ch/yoursky

The first one is a downloadable program, the second is web based. For the open source crowd i'd recommend Stellarium.

http://www.stellarium.org/

Celestia is also interesting in that it allows you to travel off the surface the earth. More akin to Starry Night pro. Not as useful to accompany the guide but fun to play around with. Also open source.

http://www.shatters.net/celestia/download.html

Have Fun!

Re:You'll need these

[kilgortrout]

And for kde users there's kstars:

http://edu.kde.org/kstars/

It usually comes bundled in the education package along with some other useful apps.

Re:You'll need these

[bcrowell]

Here is an open-source planetarium applet I wrote. It can be convenient because you can just bookmark it in your browser, and you don't need to click around. In most cases, it does a pretty good job of guessing your location based on your language and timezone, e.g., since my language is English and my timezone is PST, it guesses I'm in Los Angeles, which is correct. Even if you were in, say, San Francisco, it would still be roughly correct.

Here is a viewing guide I wrote for binocular astronomy. Doing astronomy with binoculars can be a lot of fun. It lets you see a lot of stuff you can't see with the naked eye, and there are a lot of objects for which it's also superior to a telescope, because of their large angular sizes, which don't fit into a telescope's field of view. For anyone thinking of getting a telescope, a good first step is to spend a few months or a year doing binocular observing, because it builds up your skills, and you're less likely to be frustrated when you try a telescope.

Re:You'll need these

[Barryke]

www.astrosurf.com/astropc/cartes Smurfs rule.

Wow. Slashdotted WordPress

[eaddict]

Anyone got a mirror? Anyone? Bueller?

You had me at "naked"

[OglinTatas]

Unfortunately, there is too much light pollution where I live to make astronomy, naked eye or not, very productive. The best I've ever done was see Jupiter's bands + 4 moons with a little 5 inch reflector. (And I was happy I could see that much.)

Re:You had me at "naked"

[WormholeFiend]

I'm with you on that one... if only cities would implement street lights and other infrastructure light fixtures that reflect light downward, they'd be able to use lower wattage bulbs and not only save lots of money in electricity, but give us darker night skies too.

Re:You had me at "naked"

[Average_Joe_Sixpack]

It has really become a problem in the last 20 years with the two great housing bubbles driving sprawl further and further out. I now have to drive 5.5 hours to get a real dark site ... one where you can clearly see the Andromeda galaxy with the naked eye.

Re:You had me at "naked"

[Abcd1234]

If you could make out atmospheric bands on Jupiter, then you could easily make out the rings of Saturn or the phases of Venus. And with a nebula filter (and even without), you should have no trouble eeking out many deep sky objects. There are quite a few nebulae (such as those in Orion) and clusters (both open and globular) that are brighter than magnitude 6 and should be reachable under fairly light-polluted skies. Not to mention various double stars that can be split with a 5". Heck, the moon, an object easily taken for granted, is quite beautiful to behold in a powerful telescope.

Personally, I think beginner astronomers just expect too much. A nebula in your telescope is not going to look like a Hubble snapshot. It'll be dim, bluish, and probably require averted vision to really see. This can be disappointing if one is expecting a bright, colourful vista. But if you enjoy the process of discovery, and can appreciate these things for what they are, even a dim bluish smudge against a sea of black can be quite breathtaking.

Re:You had me at "naked"

[ceoyoyo]

My city did that. It's one of the most illuminated cities in the world. Five years ago you could see about six stars, if you were lucky. Now you can almost make out the Milky Way if the conditions are perfect.

Re:You had me at "naked"

[Apotsy]

What city is that? Also, are they using the de-facto standard high pressure sodium vapour lamps, or something else?

Re:You had me at "naked"

[Anonymous Coward]

Well don't keep us in suspenders! Which city is it?

Re:You had me at "naked"

[ceoyoyo]

Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

They're supposed to be low pressure sodium vapour. They're low profile, so instead of a curved glass shield they have a flat one, that doesn't project out past the metal cover so all the light goes down. The metal cover is a different shape too, maybe it helps direct more light downwards.

Apparently the city saves something like ten million a year due to the lower wattage bulbs.

Re:You had me at "naked"

[pjay_dml]

How did it happen? I mean, what were the politics?

I'm interested, as I would like to have a notion what it would take to organize people to get our city (Sydney) to adopt such a policy. And do you have any idea what the cost of the change had been? In other words, what are the economics?

I appreciate any pointers (that save me googling time, as there will still be enough of that to do).

Re:You had me at "naked"

[Reziac]

Ah, Calgary... when I lived in Great Falls MT, we considered Calgary to be our northern sister-city :)

I wish the city (Palmdale/Lancaster CA) would do something similar, but nooo, I swear they use the most light-polluting lamps they could find. I'm 15 miles out of town, and 5 years ago nights out here were dead-black. Now, what with all the new development and heavy lighting that's ONLY in these newer housing areas -- you can't even see the main swath of the Milky Way anymore. :(

Conversely our new WalMart has downward-directed lights. Almost looks like the lights are out if you're more than a block away. Kinda embarrassing to have to point to WalMart as the only forward-thinking outfit in sight :/

Re:You had me at "naked"

[ceoyoyo]

Here's a City of Calgary page on the program (bit out of date): http://content.calgary.ca/CCA/City+Hall/Business+U nits/Roads/Street+Lights/Envirosmart+Street+Light+ Retrofit+Program.htm

Apparently they expect to recoup the costs in six or seven years. The radiated light figures are interesting too. Note that I believe Calgary's area is larger than any of the cities listed, yet it's population is quite a bit smaller than Vancouver and Seattle.

I moved to the city after they'd already decided to go ahead with the program so I don't know about any of the debate... I'm sure someone at city hall would be happy to give you some information if you e-mailed though.

Re:You had me at "naked"

[pjay_dml]

Thank you very much for the info, much appreciated!

Good idea about contacting the city directly, I'm sure they will be all too happy to share their experience.

Just wondering how many those days will be clear

[Anonymous Coward]

Just wondering how many of those days will be clear. if you live in Manhattan you don't really see any stars

Denis The SQL Menace

http://sqlservercode.blogspot.com/

Fun Observing Light Pollution

[burris]

Good luck getting your neighbors to turn off their "security" lights.

Re:Fun Observing Light Pollution

[east coast]

Good luck getting your neighbors to turn off their "security" lights.

Well, now that I got my Red Rider 200-shot lever action air rifle that won't be as hard as it was last summer.

Re:Fun Observing Light Pollution

[$RANDOMLUSER]

Just be careful you don't shoot your eye out.

Re:Fun Observing Light Pollution

[dan dan the dna man]

From my local astro mailing list:

"My real bug bear are security lights. I believe that the government has
introduced legislation so that troublesome security lights can be removed.

About 20 years ago, one of my neighbours - Brian - installed a security
light over his garage. It provided no real protection for the house and the
only real benefit was to provide Brian's dog with some illumination for his
noctural pee.

And every time Brian's security light went on, oops, there goes any dark
adaption or time exposure. Discussions with Brian proved 'ineffective'. The
only solution was the one recommended by Patrick Moore - an airgun. He
could never figure why so many of his bulbs died so frequently and so
spectacularly. (They really do go with a fearsome bang!)" :)

Re:Fun Observing Light Pollution

[Tongo]

You're gonna shoot your eye out kid.

Mis-read the title?

[andrewd18]

Anyone else accidentally mis-read the title? I certainly saw "Free Guide to Naked Astronomy", thought, "Who needs a guide for that?" and did a double-take.

I'm impressed...

[east coast]

Wow, a story that doesn't involve the **AA, bashing MS or being "censored" by the government? A story that actually involves geekdom beyond Star Wars? I'm impressed.

Even the tin foil hat types will be at ease with this.

BTW: I noted that the poster mentioned that they are from Ohio. I'm from Pittsburgh myself. Has anyone here gone to Cherry Springs for their star parties? It's only a few hours away and I hear it's fantastic because of a lack of light pollution. I'd be interested in hearing from others who have been there and how they felt about the area.

Re:I'm impressed...

[Anonymous Coward]

Even the tin foil hat types will be at ease with this

No man! They want us to look at the sky while they pack their UFOs up and move by truck! It's a conspiracy!

Re:I'm impressed...

[east coast]

Talk about being uptight.

I normally use the term "they" on slashdot unless I know the poster first hand. User names on slashdot and sexual orientation are not normally linked since most people don't use their real name. And to be very honest I normally don't pay attention to the poster's name.

This kind of PC backlash crap that makes being PC overbearing and hard for the average person to understand.

Re:I'm impressed...

[drinkypoo]

This kind of PC backlash crap that makes being PC overbearing and hard for the average person to understand.

No, political "correctness" is a bullshit term to begin with; telling me what is "correct" is itself an attempt to cause me to conform to someone else's particular world view, and is both inherently overbearing as well as being hypocritical.

Telling people what they can think is NEVER correct.

Re:I'm impressed...

[Average_Joe_Sixpack]

I've been to Cherry Springs several times and also attended the event at Spruce Knob in WV. They sky is absolutely incredible to the point of the Milky Way actually casting a shadow. You'll often find dozens of astronomers on both fields during the new moon.

Check out the Yahoo group for Cherry Springs if you are interested in venturing up.

Re:I'm impressed...

[dasimms]

To eastcoast,

I also live in 'daburgh. Unless you're already a member, I recommend joining the Pittsburgh Amateur Astronomers Association http://www.3ap.org/. You'll get access to two observatories (Wagman and Mingo) and get to meet other stargazers. While the observatories are getting more light pollution you can still see a heck of a lot more than you might think. If you'd rather not join, or want to see what it is all about, you can go to a public star party. I believe the next one is Wagman's Winterfest on Feb. 24 - a good time to try the Messier Marathon!

I went to the most recent Black Forest Star Party at Cherry Springs but the event was clouded over. But I still had a good time listening to the speakers and meeting/greeting others. The Cherry Springs site is great! There is camping, nearby motels/hotels and they even installed some dome-type observatories you can rent. But I recently heard that there is talk of building a wind-farm nearby which will have strobe lights to prevent birds from flying into them causing light pollution. We are trying to have them a) relocate the wind-farm so the light won't effect astronomy or b) use red lights so it will reduce the effect of light pollution. So the bad news is the clock may be ticking on the dark-sky preserve site at Cherry Springs.

Guess we'll all have to road-trip to WV's Almost Heaven star parties instead.

Re:I'm impressed...

[bit01]

Telling people what they can think is NEVER correct.

Yep, all unsolicited advertising should be made illegal.

In other words; it's not as simple as you imply. Most marketing is trying to control what people think.

---

The majority of modern marketing is nothing more than an arms race to get mind share. Everybody loses except the parasitic marketing "industry".

Re:I'm impressed...

[east coast]

Thanks for the info.

I actually live about 5 miles from Wagman. I use to be a AAAP member a few years ago but had gotten out of astronomy for a while and now I'm looking to get back into it again. In all likeliness I will rejoin.

Re:I'm impressed...

[hahiss]

"Telling people what they can think is NEVER correct."

I think it is, now go run along and leave us alone please.

Or are you willing to break your rule in this one case?

Re:I'm impressed...

[drinkypoo]

In other words; it's not as simple as you imply. Most marketing is trying to control what people think.

Telling people what TO think is marketing. Telling people what they can think - that is to say, what they are permitted to think - is thought control.

I hope this makes you aware of the already quite clear meaning of what I actually said.

Re:I'm impressed...

[drinkypoo]

"Telling people what they can think is NEVER correct."

I think it is, now go run along and leave us alone please. Or are you willing to break your rule in this one case?

It's okay, you can THINK it's correct. You'll be wrong, but it's okay with me if you're wrong. Thus two things are true: One, there is no contradiction here and I need break no rule. Two, you are a bozo who does not understand English. Back to grammar school with you!

Re:I'm impressed...

[Reziac]

"Even the tin foil hat types will be at ease with this."

Nonsense. As every tinfoil-hat wearer knows, Chicken Little may be RIGHT!!

Did Anyone Else...

[d3ac0n]

read that as "Naked Astronomy" at first, or was it just me?

Re:Did Anyone Else...

[edunbar93]

Well perhaps, but I wouldn't recommend it.

It's cold outside at night at this time of year.

Re: Did Anyone Else...

[Black Parrot]

> read that as "Naked Astronomy" at first, or was it just me?

You've got to watch the difference between "naked-eye astronomy" and "naked eye-astronomy".

I tried it last year

[Anonymous Coward]

I used the 2006 ebook and I can say that this is pretty good stuff. There is content for many kind of instruments: double stars that require a 12" to separate to interesting phases of planets visible with binoculars. Did you know that you can see the Saturn rings with a 4"? Me neither but thanks to Tammy Plotner I was able to look at them. Next time that you are awake at 2am, take 30 mins, the ebook and binoculars and let the universe unravel before your eyes.

You will want to upgrade your instrument after a few nights and you'll find plenty of tips on picking the right telescope in the ebook.

Re:I tried it last year

[Abcd1234]

Did you know that you can see the Saturn rings with a 4"?

Absolutely. In fact, if the seeing is good, you can even make out the Encke Gap. Not to mention detail you can make out in the atmospheres of both Saturn and Jupiter. Oh, and the phases of Venus. And a ton of deepsky objects, too (there are some lovely nebulae and globular clusters well within reach of a 4" reflector, even under light-polluted skies. Objects like the Wild Duck Cluster or Hercules Cluster are really quite breathtaking, especially after spending 20 minutes starhopping trying to track them down).

Really, a decent 4" reflector coupled with a pair of lenses, which can be had for a few hundred bucks, can withstand many many nights of observing before a larger instrument becomes necessary.

Re:I tried it last year

[haystor]

I was looking at Saturn last night with a 3" refractor. At only 80x magnification I could clearly see the rings (as one solid ring). There was clear separation of the rings from the planet. I was also able to see what I think were a few moons, I'm not too sure until I check the next few nights to see if they're moving with Saturn.

Re:I tried it last year

[Abcd1234]

Well, assuming the other poster was using a reflector, it's probably not a good one-to-one comparison, as refractors will provide a sharper image at a given aperture, which is why they're favourable for planetary observation (where their inherent problems with chromatic aberation are less of an issue).

Reflectors, OTOH, allow for much larger apertures, making them favourable for deepsky observation.

Re:I tried it last year

[Anonymous Coward]

The moons of Jupiter and Saturn are easy to tell from stars. You see a bunch of fairly bright objects with almost the same magnitude almost aligned on a plane. To tell which if which requires a good ephemeride table of a few nights of observation. KStars has a calculator for the moons position. The best tool for that is Starry Nights but if you have that kind of money to burn, put it on your scope.

Orange glow

[PsyQo]

The only thing I see in the sky atm is an orange glow. Could it be a burning webserver?

nothing to see

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, looking at this link I get the exact feeling when I look up to the sky, "Nothing to see here."

[19 posts and already /.ed]

WARNING

[LiquidCoooled]

WARNING: Do not look at the day-star with your remaining eye.

Specifically, do not use binoculars or a telescope.

Re:WARNING

[Dutch_Cap]

Why would I want to moon the sun, anyway?

Re:WARNING

[teknopagan]

WARNING: Do not look at the day-star with your remaining eye.

Specifically, do not use binoculars or a telescope.

Ya know, people joke about this, but it's no lie. When I got my 8" Celestron Starhopper, one of the first things I did after collimating (which I did in the daytime) was check to see what happens when you point a telescope at the sun. I wasn't dumb enough to use my eye to line it up, fortunately; I placed my hand about 6" from the eyepiece and adjusted the tube until I had a circle of (hot!) light in my palm. I then pulled out a cigarette and was able to light it at the focal point of the light coming through the eyepiece in about 3 seconds. That focal point is right about where your retina would be when looking through the eyepiece. Bad news, for sure.

Re:WARNING

[rubycodez]

that can be bad for the scope too, it heats the optics at the far end. Best to get a proper solar filter that goes on the big end

Re:WARNING

[solitas]

You really know how to kill an eyepiece...

WordPress + Slashdot

[Rob T Firefly]

To all my other fellow WordPress nuts out there, please take the necessary precautions before submitting your site to Slashdot with "download my free" anything.

Additionally, just stick said freebie in a torrent to change all the panicked "Fucksocks, I'm Slashdotted!" screams into happy "Woo and Yay, I'm Slashdotted!" chirps.

Can't fight Monty Python's gravitational pull...

[avronius]

Luxury!
We used to live in a wet paper bag 'long side the road.
On those few days when we didn't have to get up half an hour before we went to bed, we'd polish large flat rocks with bits of sand, use those to gaze up at the sky. And we were happy we could see the sky!

Obligatory Uranus Joke

[srobert]

Oh, just make it up yourself...

Naked?

[guruevi]

I opened all articles of today in a tab and I saw: Free Guide to Naked and I was hoping for more interesting subjects

Re:Wow. Slashdotted WordPress

[cpm]

Web page:
http://www.mirrordot.org/stories/d836baa0e91f81cdd 5e6e15dbc88fa61/index.html

PDF [Size: 23.3Mb]:
http://www.mirrordot.org/media/6eeaa081830de8a6476 656a76d6ae669/365days2007.pdf

H.A. Rey

[ajsnow]

I flipped through a few pages (at amazon; it was already /.ed by the time I visited the link). Those star maps are ok. But for my money, by far the best guides to stargazing are the two books H.A. Rey wrote about it: The Stars: A New Way to See Them and Find the Constellations . I've never seen anyone else who actually makes stargazing as accessible they way he did -- his renderings of the consetllations actually make sense, unlike almost all the others I've seen. The books are for true beginners but The Stars also provides plenty of information to geek out on once you've figured out what you're doing. I read these as a kid 'til my copies were tattered and have never found anything better.

(Most of you know Rey by his much more famous works: he and his wife wrote the Curious George books.)

Re:Wow. Slashdotted WordPress

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks!

Re:Wow. Slashdotted WordPress

[eaddict]

Thanks. I'd give you some Karma if I had it to give.

Direct link to the book.

[Fraser Cain]

Wow, I didn't think this would get onto Slashdot. Anyway, I enabled WP-cache, so the server can handle the load now.

Here's a direct link to the book, just in case the server goes down again:

http://media.libsyn.com/media/astronomycast/365day s2007.pdf

Cool

[Sloppy]

Thanks, Tammy!

Why do all astronomy books...

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

...geared towards the naked eye, binoculars and small telescopes have pictures on the front cover of views that you'll never see with the naked eye, binoculars or a small telescope? Even "The Backyard Astronomer's Guide", the bible of backyard astromomers, has a stunning picture of the Andromeda galaxy on the cover that looks like it was taken by Hubble, or at least something the size of a truck.

Re:Why do all astronomy books...

[Fraser Cain]

The cover picture was taken by R. Jay Gabany, using nice equipment, but nothing too extravagant - 20-inch reflector, I believe. The telescope he uses can be booked by the public, and controlled through the Internet.

Here's more of his work:
http://www.cosmotography.com/

Re:Why do all astronomy books...

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

That's a $60,000 telescope in its own observatory in New Mexico. I'd love one of those beauties. It'll cost almost twice as much to do the upcoming remodel of the kitchen and bathroom in our house (SF Bay Area contractors...) but somehow it's harder justify that kind of expense on a telescope. Maybe in 20 years when I retire it won't seem so extravagant...

Another free guide to the night sky.

[edunbar93]

Personally, I found HNSky to be extremely helpful for finding the constellations, since it shows the sky as it looks at that exact moment in time, in reference to the horizon. It can also be used by any other level of astronomer, as it's very accurate and can be connected to a computer-guided telescope.

Re:Wow. Slashdotted WordPress

[loraksus]

Hehe, they had the same problem last year and I hooked them up with some free hosting. They seem to be a lot better off this year though.

New Years

[Anonymous Coward]

Due to the greatly reduced number of cars on the road during the holiday week, New Year's Day is (weather permitting) the best day of the year for urban and suburban astronomy and landscape photography.

Is this book for real?

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

Is it really a good time to go looking for Iris (mag 7) when the nearly full moon is nearby in the sky? And worse, check out the Jan 4 story about observation of Sirius from the supposed island of Zylos in 11,542 BC.