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What Objects To Focus On For School Astronomy?
IceDiver writes "I am a teacher in a small rural school. My Grade 9 students are doing a unit on astronomy this spring. I have access to a 4" telescope, and would like to give my students a chance to use it. We will probably only be able to attempt observations on a couple of nights because of weather and time restrictions. I am as new to telescope use as my students, so I have no idea what objects would look good through a 4" lens. What observations should I attempt to have my students make? In other words, how can I make best use of my limited equipment and time to give my students the best experience possible?"
Advantages: Easy to find in the sky. Viewable during daytime hours.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
... point telescopes directly into it.
Tell'em to find it.
Jupiter and the Jovian moons. Should be easy to see. Saturn and it's rings.
I'd suggest objects that are very easy to find, so the students don't spend the whole time searching for them.
Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, Venus, M31 (Andromeda galaxy), Orion Nebula (M42) are a good start.
Messier Objects (M31, M57 are easy to find).
1. The moon.
2. How about the moon?
3. You might want to consider the moon.
4. Have you given any thought to the moon?
No special filters needed, and it's by *far* the most visually impressive with a small aperture. If you can get appropriate filters, the sun is another good option. Everything else.... you might see phases on some of the larger bodies. And you'll probably be able to see the Jovian moons as points of light. That's about it. Perhaps a faint blur for the Andromeda galaxy if you're in a good location.
But the moon looks awesome even through a small scope.
Kneel Before Christ!
Jupiter and its moons are an obvious one, Saturn too. Some more easy to find objects, Orion Nebula is always cool and easy to find.
Do NOT look at Sun with remaining eye.
No brain, no pain.
See if they can find it before the POTUS cuts its budget.
Everybody knows that it's excellent to look at women through thick glasses!
A great book for beginners is Turn Left at Orion, by Guy Consolmagno
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Turn-Left-Orion-Hundred-Telescope/dp/0521781906
Study the moon. You can explain how the Van-Allen radiation belt proves that the moon landing is a conspiracy!
Planets and clusters are probably the easiest objects to find with a 4" telescope (same size as mine). Planets are really easy to find since you can usually spot them, and you should be able to see some detail- moons around Jupiter, and Saturn's rings.
Clusters (globular, open, etc) may be a bit harder to find and harder to see, but some of them are impressive with even a 4" telescope. The Messier objects shouldn't be too hard to find with a star chart.
Planets are always fun to look at, for instance if you have decent optics you should be able to make out some of the colouration on Jupiter as well as some of the moons. The moon is also a good place to look, you should be able to see interesting shadows on the craters or if you have a half moon look that the line between light and dark you can get some interesting contrast there.
Different things are visible at different times, although a four inch telescope is really only going to be able to see the the brightest objects. A little better than binoculars, but surprisingly little better after you account for the perception boost binoculars get by letting you use both eyes.
If you're talking about a nearby observation opportunity, then let me recommend Sky & Telescope - At a Glance and Human Spaceflight Realtime Data as sources of interesting things to look for. You can also nearly always find a satellite or two around dusk, if you know where to look. Nasa has some pages about that as well.
Make sure you have some information to talk about about everything you plan to look at, since most of the class will be standing around the telescope rather than actually looking through it at any given time.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
You didn't mention the location of your school (probably wisely); however, it would be useful to know at least the vague region in which you live, as it impacts what's visible at different times of the year.
The moon, Venus, and Mars are good places to start. NASA has a "Near-Earth Object" program (http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/) that may be of interest to you.
Also, while man-made objects aren't necessarily directly related to astronomy, the International Space Station is also quite visible with the naked eye; I'm sure a telescope would make the observation much better. Again, this depends on your location and when the ISS will be visible there.
"You will pay for your lack of vision..." - Emperor Palpatine to Ray Charles
The Moon. Jupiter and its moons. Saturn. Venus. The Orion Nebula. The Andromeda Galaxy.
And get out there and look at the dramatic and easy stuff. Jupiter and its moons is really cool to watch. And you just can't go wrong with the moon. All of the things I listed above should be easy to find with a small telescope. Looking for much more is going to be frustrating and boring for a group of students. Looking at stars is going to be very boring (stars look like points of light, even with the best telescopes). Go grab a copy of http://www.stellarium.org/ to help you find things and you should be good to go.
-Erik -- --This message was written using 73% post-consumer electrons--
Why ask this hear when there are numerous places where you'll get better answers. Try www.cloudynights.com.
Check this link out it's the one I have used for several years for other Astronomy classes,
All of the objects listed can be seen with a small telescope (4 - 6")... there are several targets on the list so check them out in advance and see what's best visible in your region.
http://irwincur.tripod.com/ten_best_obj_-_small_telescope.htm
I'm also fairly sure the NASA website has a very good list of targets including space junk and satelites that can be seen and I know the space station can be seen with a 4" scope depending on the time of year and your region, you just need to use the start chart index on their page.
That kind of depends on where you are. If you're viewing from way out on the edge of town with nothing but farmland in all directions then you'll be able to see some pretty impressive things like the rings of Saturn, Jupiter's moons, the canals on Mars, the mote in Murcheson's Eye, C-beams glittering in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate... That kind of thing.
On the other hand if you're in downtown LA you might want to show them some of the stars in the Big Dipper, or see how much of Orion's belt you can make out. After that it's time to head back into the classroom and have a nice long lesson about Light Pollution.
There are tons of books about this topic, especially about objects which can be viewed through binoculars or small telescopes. Consolmagno's "Turn left at Orion" provides a great introduction and has a really cool map of the moon. My recommendation with a 4" scope would be obviously the Moon surface, Jupiter and its moons, Saturn (you can see the ring in a 4" scope!), Andromeda, Orion Nebula, and possibly some colorful stars. Despite the great excitement many astronomers have for their craft, most of the "exciting" objects look pretty dull to the layman or are not visible through a 4" scope. People are pretty spoiled by all the colorful nebula photos which are so abundant anywhere.
"I am as new to telescope use as my students, so I have no idea what objects would look good through a 4" lens."
How about Miss Crabapple through her bedroom window?
There's a whole bunch of ways to approach it, but my favorite is to dig up the Messier objects - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messier_object - visible in your sky and just run down what you have available. Tried and true, fairly well known, and they're tough enough you have to actually look for them, but mostly easily enough to find that the students can find success. Another bonus: There are fantastic images available online and you can dig up a pile of photos that will help them see what they're looking for. Side topics up for discussion could be photo manipulation, wavelengths of light, and why the photos don't look the same as we can see through a microscope. It's important in case you think you can put a camera at the end of a telescope and just snap off equivalent photos.
Personal recommendation: If you're just starting yourself take a look at the Astronomy Picture of the Day http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ to see what kinds of interesting objects are in the sky at that particular time of year. They give great talking points there targeted towards interested amateurs like me.
Here is a good beginners guide to finding objects and telescope use: http://www.rocketroberts.com/astro/first.htm
Download Stellarium for free and explore with your PC.
The moon
The Orion nebula
The Andromeda galaxy
Saturn
Jupiter
find mars
Identify well known constellations
Satellites
Meteor showers
The international space station
Some globular clusters
make it a fun social event for other reasons
A four-inch scope (like the classic Edmund Astroscan that I started with) can show good examples of all the major object types in the night sky.
The moon looks great in any kind of telescope. Get a moon filter and expect to spend some time on it.
If the scope and eyepiece are decent, the rings of Saturn and the Galilean moons of Jupiter should be easy targets, and cloud bands on Jupiter just about visible, though you won't see much detail. Likewise Mars. . . Easy to see the planet, but no details. Phases of Venus should be easy. Mercury is dependent on good timing and can be hard to spot. Uranus is another tricky object to find in a scope, since it only looks like a faint star until you get the scope right on it.
When you get into "deep sky objects" like galaxies, nebulas, and star clusters. . . All these can be seen in a 4-inch scope, but you'll have to pick the biggest and brightest examples of them. You'll also have to explain that they're going to see a faint fuzzy splotch when they peer through the lens, not fireworks or something out of Hubble.
In a four inch scope the planets are a good option. Jupiter and its satellites are always fun to look at and you should easily be able to see cloud bands on the planet's surface. If you're lucky you can likely even see the shadows of the moons cross the surface of the planet. Saturn is a must if at all possible. Unfortunately in the spring Orion may not be visible in the evenings so that rules out the Orion nebula (the only naked-eye nebula for the Northern hemisphere - not sure if there's anything down South). The Andromeda galaxy might be a good representative of a galactic object although there won't be much detail in a scope that size. I recommend checking out skyandtelescope.com and doing a search for local amateur astronomy groups in your area. You will likely find a local group that is willing to donate their time to present to your students and make their instruments available for an evening or more. They likely have 'scopes that far outstrip the four inch scope you already have access too which will give access to a whole range of diffuse and distant objects like galaxies and nebula.
Good source of free starmaps: skymaps.com
Here are some fairly easy targets off the top of my head...
Moon: Choose a night when the Moon is not full -- have a look at the terminator (the boundary between the dark and light parts). You might be surprised at how those craters and hills seem to pop out at you.
Mars: Mars is near Opposition and should look pretty good -- you might even be able to see a white spot at one of the poles -- that's the polar ice cap.
Other Planets: Saturn, Jupiter, Venus, and Mercury are usually pretty easy to find. See a current starmap for times and locations. (Saturn will rock your world.)
Albireo: The head of Cygnus the Swan is a double star -- one yellow, one blue. Striking and easy to find.
The Ring Nebula: In Lyra, almost centered between two of the stars (find yourself a star map for a visual). It's faint, so you'll want to be away from city lights, but a small telescope should barely see it. It will look like a dim gray ring. Show the kids that, then show them the HST picture for comparison.
The Milky Way: Billions that faint gray swath turns into billions of stars when viewed through a telescope (even a small one).
The Neighborhood of Scorpius: There are several interesting things to see in Scorpius. Globular clusters, etc. Get a starmap and point the scope(s) South!
Dress warm and have fun out there!
--
Ron Proctor
Production Coordinator
Ott Planetarium - Weber State University
weber.edu/planetarium
1. The Moon (As easy as it gets)
2. Venus (Very easy to find)
3. Saturn (Fairly easy)
4. Jupiter (Moderate)
5. Mars (Sometimes)
American kids don't care about stuff like this, and even if they did, they'd never be able to find gainful employment in it when they finish college. Teach them skills which will be more useful for their future careers. Here's a range of examples for different kids:
1) for the dumb kids, teach them how to flip burgers and operate deep fryers.
2) for the middle-intelligence kids, teach them how to set up scams, because that'll be a very important industry in the future of America. Examples include loan-modification scams, where you get people to pay you $3000 to "attempt" to work with their lender to modify their loan, but you never actually do anything and point to the small-print disclaimer in the contract saying results are not guaranteed.
3) for the smart kids, teach them about law, so they can become lawyers. We can never have too many of those in this country, especially with all the scammers. Victims need lawyers to sue the scammers, and scammers need lawyers to help them shield their personal assets from lawsuits and successfully funnel money from the scam-business to their personal bank accounts.
How about the Orion Nebula, which you can see with the naked eye, even with a good bit of light pollution. And mayby the Andromeda Galaxy, which you can also see with the naked eye if there isn't much light pollution, and can easily be seen with binoculars or a small telescope.
The moon, particularly when it's NOT full, as there is more detail to see when it's not full. Someone mentioned Jupiter and it's moons. Observe them over several nights, have your students sketch what they see, discuss why the moons are in different positions each night/hour. Get a copy of "Skyways" from the Royal AStronomical Society of Canada - it's a resource for teachers (http://www.rasc.ca/publications/index.shtml). The Pleiades star cluster is always beautiful. Saturn will be high in the south east and is always nice even in a small telescope. Mars will be high in Cancer next to the Bee-hive cluster. Both are wonderful small-scope objects and will be very close together. The three bright galaxies in Leo, "The Leo Triplet" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Triplet) will all fit in a field of view nicely. Good luck!
Hi, I help run an astronomy group (San Diego Astronomy Association) and I think I can help you out - feel free to contact me directly if you have questions.
:)
Right now I would recommend showing off:
The Pleiades (M45) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleiades_(star_cluster)
The Great Orion Nebula (M42) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_Nebula
The Andromeda Galaxy (M31) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda_galaxy
You can also check out the planets - right now Mars is pretty close and bright, but it isn't much to look at through a 4" telescope. You can show off Saturn, but it doesn't rise until kind of late. You should be able to see the rings, but right now they are edge-on.
Depending on where you are located, you may also be able to check out some smaller galaxies and nebula. Also, depending on where you are located, get in contact with an astronomy group and see if you can visit a local amateur observatory. We have a site about an hour from down town San Diego where we have a 22" telescope available for public viewing once a month and we also have public events held almost weekly where we bring telescopes generally around 10" in size (I bring my 16" on clear nights).
Others have joked about using your telescope to point at the Sun - obviously don't do it. Even pointing the scope at the Sun will permanently destroy eyepieces and coatings on optics - and if you happen to look through it, say good bye to your vision. Permanently. However, if you can get yourself a solar filter to put over the telescope, you can safely observe the Sun - which is pretty interesting. You should be able to see sun spots and perhaps prominences with the right kind of filter.
Good luck, and clear skies!
-Bill
Pretty much the big four for that size telescope.
Also maybe sunspots, if you view it by looking at a piece of white paper held a few inches from the eyepiece and explain about not looking through it directly.
Link to general visibility -- http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mjpowell/Astro/Naked-Eye-Planets/Naked-Eye-Planets.htm
Your geographical location doesn't matter too much in spring, as you'll get plenty of viewing along the ecliptic.
I think the linked site is for northern hemisphere. Hope your kids understand ecliptic before you're done.
More links like it? google terms: planets visibility 2010
Do what every kid wants to do with a large magnifing device: you burn ants! It's a great daytime activity, and gives tham a chance to release their aggressive tendencies. Gets them outside burning calories, cutting down on clildhood obesity, unless they start eating the ants.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
I think the moon idea is best. You can check out the craters, and if you make sure not to move the telescope, you'll be able to notice the movement of earth and moon relative to each other (i.e. the moon will edge closer to the edge of the scope's field of view as time goes on).
Although it isn't actually looking at the objects with your own telescope, all of the data that the Hubble Space Telescope creates is free to the public. To use the data you will need a copy of Adobe Photoshop, but once you have that it can be great fun to create the same sort of images you see from the Hubble Heritage site. To use the data (that you get in fits format) in Photoshop, you need to download the "Fits Liberator" from the http://www.spacetelescope.org/ site (check the projects tab). You can then get the data from http://archive.stsci.edu/hst/search.php (you will have to create an account).
No matter where you go, there you are. So Enjoy it.
Unless you have done this already, start by orienting them to the sky without a telescope.
There is a lot to see with just a set of eyes.
Then use a few pairs binoculars to see some of the larger things like the moon, small constellations.
A lot more students can see a lot more that way.
Always start off with stars the students will recognize immediately. Rajnikant, Kamalahasan, Shivaji, MGR, Saroja Devi, T R Rajakumari, T K Thyagarajabhagavadhar, N S Krishnan ...
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Get accustomed to setting up and taking down your telescope in the dark. You probably want a couple of flashlights with red filters to reduce night vision loss. Your students might be able to bring a few more binoculars or telescopes so that your students have something to do other than wait their turn at the telescope. Finally, I see a few links to sites about amateur astronomy. These can be pretty useful since there are a number of unintuitive things about telescope observer that would be better for you to find out ahead of time (for example, nebula look better at smaller magnification because they have low surface brightness).
We will probably only be able to attempt observations on a couple of nights because of weather and time restrictions. I am as new to telescope use as my students, so I have no idea what objects would look good through a 4" lens.
Are you in the Santa Monica area? If so, answer is obvious.
In other words, how can I make best use of my limited equipment and time to give my students the best experience possible?
DO NOT go there!
Uranus.
Venus will become an evening star in the next few months. If your observations are over a few weeks, it would be an excellent evening target as it will go through its phases, much like our own moon does. If the observations are around twilight, you can even have them attempt to see Venus while the sun is still up by looking in the same part of the sky when the sun is up. It gets harder with age(sigh) but I remember easily being able to do it when I was around the age of grade 9.
The Moon focus on the shadow line, or a time when its around 1 week bfore a full moon, as the terminator(shadow) will show excellent surface relief of features.
Jupiter will be probably be only an early morning target during that time, so thats probably out.
Saturn isnt going to be a very good target, other than to show it as a planet, because it is in the part of its orbit where the rings are tilted almost edge on to earth.
Globular Clusters M13 in Hercules would be an excellent target.
Planetary Nebula The 'ring nebula' in the constellation Lyra will be a excellent target for evening viewing, if its late enough, as from most locations in the US it appears almost at the zenith
Double Stars Even through a 4" scope you can see some amazing color contrasts. Albireo in the constellation Cygnus is one of the best, with one red, one blue star. Also, you can go in to some detail about the different types of telescopes, and their functions.
But most importantly, focus on the history of Astronomy itself. There is a rich history over thousands of years of astronomers that have taken us all the way to where we are now, and we wouldnt be here without those giants of the past; Gallileo Gallelie, Nikolas Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Charles Messier(hes the 'M' in all those objects...M13, M31, etc), Edwin Hubble, Edmund Halley.
I envy you. Have Fun!
For 9th graders and a 4" telescope under rural skies: the Moon, moons of Jupiter, rings of Saturn, phases of Venus, an open cluster, M13, and a color contrasting binary star such as Albireo. Anything else will look like a faint smudge of light. Also, you might be able to mask a good portion of the aperture, and view sunspots from the projection of the sun.
In grade 10 the most impressive viewing I had was a daytime viewing of Jupiter. We looked at multiple planets during the day, it was very cool. It was an elective astronomy class though, so everyone there was very interested.
The moon is good, but planets, depending on what is in the sky, would also be very cool. You can really see that Mars is red.
Show them whatever inner planets are visible this time of year and they'll probably never forget it. Venus, Mars and Jupiter are awesome... and show them how you found them in the sky.
Pleiades, Orion nebula, Moon (view terminator for dramatic relief of mountains and craters), Saturn
All of these will show enough detail that kids will recognize them for what they are.
As other posters have mentioned, the moon is definitely something you should go for - it's big, bright, easy to find and quite impressive through a small telescope. Plus it's got historical significance for the role it played in Galileo's observations. Jupiter is another obvious target (also with historical significance). If you have enough time between your observing opportunities you can get the kids to draw the positions of the Galilean moons at the first session and then see that they've moved at the second. Venus and Mars are also good. You should be able to make out the phase of Venus (if it's not full or new) and might be able to see some detail on Mars (if you hurry), depending on the seeing. Some bright galaxies (Andromeda) can be interesting. The great nebula in Orion is also good because, under dark skies, you can just make it out with the naked eye but a telescope can reveal some detail. The Pleiades and other clusters are also good. You could also try splitting some binaries, such as Alcor and Mizar in the Big Dipper.
This page gives some suggestions: http://irwincur.tripod.com/ten_best_obj_-_small_telescope.htm
Whatever you do, if it's visible, don't miss Saturn. Even in the smallest telescopes Saturn is visible as something that is clearly not the round star that it looks like to the naked eye. It's the first sky object I remember seeing through a telescope or binoculars and being able to see that there is structure in something that appears to the naked eye as a featureless point made an impact.
Some suggestions:
- Start with the planets, and bright messier objects (brighter than magnitude 4 to start with). Don't waste too much time on fainter deep sky objects - you need a larger scope (bigger aperture) and/or low light pollution.
- Take a look at the zodical constellations and plan ahead to look at what's visible at the time of year your course is on.
- Get a planisphere, and a book or two.
- Take a look at the free astronomy software out there - especially Cartes Du Ceil/Skycharts, Celestia, Stellarium. There's excellent paid stuff too but start with what's free.
- Get in touch with your local astronomy club and talk to them - some of them will have been in it for decades and will intimately know what's viewable from your location for a given time of year. You might even be able to get one to come out for an observing night.
- Look up the brightest stars in wikipedia
- Find a local professional astronomer and ask if they know of any school programs your school can get involved in. There may be a chance to get the kids to do some real science
- Get a hold of a cheap pair of 7x50 binoculars. Binoculars are easier to use than a telescope, can be mounted to a camera tripod if you wish, and easier to learn to use before stepping up to a scope.
- Create some basic analogue setting circles for your telescope and learn to align it so you can be sure you know what you're looking at
- Make sure your kids know what they're looking at. Kids are use to big visuals and if they don't understand what they're seeing even the most impressive sites like Saturn's rings will be a let down
The web is your friend. Lots out there. Not all related to observing. Google beginner astronomy.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
4" is a wide definition. The focal length, optical type (a 4" refactor is a very different beast than a 4" reflector, and there are lots of options in-between), and available eyepieces factor in. None the less, planetary targets are usually impressive.
The moon is always a good choice. Don't wait for a full moon -- partial phases are more interesting because the lighting and shadows emphasize just how bumpy the moon is.
I have a 4" F13 scope (roughly 52" focal length -- 1350mm), and it's not bad for brighter nebulae as well, such as M42 in orion, and galaxies such as the Andromeda galaxy.
More Caffeine. NOW
... a map of the sky. Show them star charts. Do a basic polar alignment of your scope (assuming it as an equitorial mount), point the scope to a known object like Sirius and set the setting circles, then have them find a prominent object by star hopping, then by dialing in the R.A. and Declination. Use a nice wide-angle eyepiece - calculate the field of view based on the focal lenght of your scope and the eyepiece.
Astronomy is a great segway into optics, cartography, geometry. All easy things to demonstrate and play with in the classroom.
Dan
It would be more than likely that if you were to contact your nearest astronomy club, you'd find people more than willing to bring MUCH BETTER telescopes right to your class and people who would be willing to spend time with your class showing you the most interesting things in the sky.
Not to be snarky, but most colleges teaching Astronomy should be willing to arrange a field trip for your class to coincide with one of their labs.
Disadvantage is its at night.
Advantage is anyone signing up for a voluntary field trip would be interested in the subject
Alternately, maybe your area has a planetarium?
The Moon is probably a great place to start and the rest of this thread suggests several other natural satellites such as Jupiter or Mars but you can also try finding some artificial satellites as well like the International Space Station (ISS) It orbits fast enough that the station is visible several times each day all day long, it's just a matter of tracking it. How much detail you can see I don't know, probably not a lot but the fact that you can see something man made hovering overhead in space is amazing in of it self.
I've worked a bit in astronomy with the public. While I've not looked through a telescope for ages:
The Backyard Astronomer's Guide by Terence Dickinson and Alan Dyer.
Was the book we recommended most of the time. Very good source of info on everything.
If you are new to it.
A) Familiarize yourself with the sky with the naked eye. Use a starfinder, learn major constellation.
B) You can use a pair of binocular for a lot of objects.
C) Planet are always easy to spot, check on the net where they are at the moment. Saturn, Jupiter, Mars are always a hit.
Saturn and Jupiter are the most interesting thing to watch for beginners.
D) Look at known stars that are double/triple stars. The easiest to spot is in the tail of the big dipper.
E) Stars have different colors. I don't remember on the spot and I'm at work, but there is blue/red/yellow stars.
1) The moon - easiest to find, everyone enjoys seeing it up close for the 1st time. Focus on Tycho crater and terminator.
2) Saturn and Jupiter - next in line of ease. details apparent in even the smallest of scopes. You might get lucky and see Saturns rings at a large angle, or a transit of one of Jupiter's moons.
3) Venus and mars - Though not that difficult to find, the detail, other than venus's phases can be a little disappointing.
4) Some of the easier Messier objects -
- Globular clusters - once you practice, they are easy to find in binoculars. Will be very surprising to students who are unfamiliar with Globular Clusters.
- Open clusters - Pleiades for example
- Galaxies - Andromeda would be the easiest, next in line is probably M81, M83
Once you get down to #4, you really need to practice finding them before attempting it for the 1st time in front of the students.
Prof. Farnsworth - "Oh a lesson in not changing history from Mr I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!"
As well as all the previously mentioned objects (moon/planents/etc.) you could consider man made stuff as well including ISS, satelite 'flashes', radio beacons from satelites.
There's a real time 'calculator' here:
http://www.heavens-above.com./
These would help you students understand orbits.... even just a simple GPS reciver which shows which satellites are above you would be cool.
Mungewell.
Why not let your students choose some/all of the targets, subject to final vetting (or pre-screening) by you? In this way they gain a feeling of ownership over the process and generally become more invested in the subject matter. You could even point them to Stellarium for free home planetarium software to plan their observations.
Whatever you decide to observe, your students will get more out of it if they are actively involved -- i.e., no passive observing. If you have several nights, you could look at Jupiter each night and have them sketch the arrangement of the moons (c.f. Galilei 1610). If you have a solar filter, you could do the same thing with sunspots (if any are visible). Venus, Mars, or Saturn's rings may be attractive targets, depending on what you want to do with the observations.
Finally, there are additional astronomy education resources at the Astronomy Education Review, a free online journal.
Astronomy may have been revolutionized by the telescope, but the field was founded on the naked eye. I know it seems like a great idea to show off a new gadget to your students, but doing this will bias their minds to believe that one can only appreciate the stars with an expensive telescope. This is flat out false.
Teach them about constellations. Make it a contest to point out the most constellations! Knowledge of the constellations can lead to other insights, like the importance of the north star. When your students understand this, they might be ready for a telescope.
I teach astronomy courses to university students. The best object by far to look at is the Moon, as others have said.
I've written a number of outdoor lab exercises for introductory astro students which would be perfectly appropriate for your students. You can read one on the Moon, in particular. Or you can look at the lists of exercises in this class or this other class for more ideas.
I'd recommend the "Limiting Magnitude" exercise as one which you can do when the Moon isn't up. It will help if you have several pairs of binoculars in addition to the telescope.
Good luck!
Michael Richmond "This is the heart that broke my finger."
mwrsps@rit.edu http://stupendous.rit.edu
It's sad how light polluted even farmland is these days. I live in eastern Iowa. I mean, you'd think, "Iowa! You must have great viewing conditions, right?"
Mediocre at best..
How much we've polluted our night skies is tragic. If you want a low Bortle limit in the US, you have to go to remote parts of the desert southwest or rockies. And I hate to think of it, but I doubt even that will be the case by the time our kids reach our age.
Kneel Before Christ!
Do *not* go for the full moon, the light washes out all the interesting stuff. Go at a waxing or waning moon, and look along the line of shadow to properly see the craters. Also, be warned, it hurts like crazy if you're not careful. There's enough light coming off even the moon to nuke your eye unless you filter it.
As for stars, be warned that even on a clear night the "seeing" is likely to be poor unless the air's really still. The "seeing" is basically how much the moving air pushes the image around as it's coming down, and unless the night is very still indeed it absolutely kills stars -- they're just pinpricks of light, and they'll jump around in your view like crazy. It will also tend to blur even Saturn and Jupiter, but certainly go for Saturn anyway. Jupiter's worthwhile if you've got quite a few well-spread nights to view on, so that you can see how the moons move. You can get them to draw Jupiter and its moons, and compare their pictures over the course of a month or two. Otherwise it's probably not going to be all that exciting unless you're very lucky and get to see some of the bands.
Pleiades is a good call, as is the Orion nebula. Also, Betelgeuse so the kids can see how damned *red* the star actually is -- I find that's much clearer through a telescope than to the naked eye. Otherwise I'd stick to planets and the moon because the seeing could well be a killer.
i would use Celestia - in the classroom
there are a BUNCH of "Celestia ED " tools designed BY teachers for the classroom But then again i am not impartial
"I don't pitch OpenSUSE Linux to my friends, i let Microsoft do it for me
Living in the city, of course I never see stars. But when I make plans on vacation to be somewhere to specifically look at the stars, it's always cloudy. Or so they claim! I think this "stars" thing is just a myth or a joke being played on gullible city dwellers.
My advice is to focus mostly on the sky rather than the telescope. You don't want to have "telescope class".
Invite students to bring binoculars. Find and identify all the constellations you can. They're not just for astrology, they're a great way to orient yourself to the sky.
Plus they're interesting and historical and you can see them with the naked eye. If you have 2 nights, find a planet on the first night and note it's position. On your next night out you can note how it "wandered". "Planet" being greek for "wanderer". Be sure to check out the Big Dipper. One it's stars is an optical binary as well as a telescopic binary. There's a nice little story to be told about ancient people using it to test eyesight. It's a great thing to look at with the naked eye, binoculars, and then the telescope, showing how each tool works relative to the other. Since most of the kids won't have telescopes at home, these are great lessons in how neat astronomy is with just your eyes and/or binoculars. They don't need a telescope to be interested.
If you or somebody in your class has an iphone there are great astronomy apps. StarMap and Distant Suns are both very good and offer free versions that work great in the field.
Also, blankets and tarps are a good thing to bring along. Looking at the sky with the naked eye or binoculars is much more enjoyable lying on one's back. Craning necks is a good way to lose interest fast.
Have Fun!!
Operator, give me the number for 911!
I would submit Saturn. depending on when and where your class is, even with a smaller telescope you should be able to see the rings. They are currently on the way to 'opening' again (as visible from earth), but I believe you could see something there. Another very good resource (I find especially for ISS sightings), is Heavens-Above.com. They have LOTS of info, maps, sighting schedules, etc.
The Tellus Science Museum in Northwest Georgia has a nice planetarium.
I wasn't to impressed with the kids program since you can basically get the same show on PBS, however the "Live Tour of Tonights Sky" is impressive.
Georgia Tech does a lot of stuff with them and there are some nice exhibits. If you haven't been I'd recommend it.
Amazing to see Saturn's rings and both planets' moons with your own eyes (through a telescope, of course).
...any hot neighbors around?
As someone previously mentioned,
"Turn Left at Orion" would be a good resource, because everything in TLaO is viewable through a 4" telescope. Further, there are pencil drawings of what one should see through the scope, which is a much more accurate depiction than what a person sees in magazines such as "Sky and Telescope" and "Astronomy".
I would certainly plan ahead. There are really four categories of targets easily accesible with a 4" scope: (a) moon, (b) planets (really, just Saturn and Jupiter) (c) *some* deep sky objects and (d) the sun. Looking for binary stars, comets, variable stars, and such is just not going to be very fruitful, except in the very best of conditions with a very good instrument. Using general resources on the Web or the Sky and Telescope web site specifically (or the magazine for that matter) can tell you what is even available for your planned evenings and times. It's been awhile since I looked at TLaO, but I think it's broken down by late evening viewing for each season. In other words, what the Eastern sky looks like at 11:00p in winter is very different from what it looks like in summer.
Weather can be your best friend or worst enemy, for obvious reasons. But picking a night of full moon to look at deep sky objects is equally bad. This is why planning ahead of time is so important. You can also set expectations ahead of time of what will be observable, and what it might look like through the lens. Again, the beautiful pictures from Hubble are a far cry from what someone sees in a telescope. So, it can be very easy for a new observer to feel let down if their expectations aren't addressed early.
If you go for some deep sky objects (See the Messier Catalog), make sure you spend a night before hand figuring out how to find these objects on your own and what they look like. You don't want to be fumbling at the telescope trying to the find Orion Nebula while everyone just stares at you, and then not know if you have even found what you're looking for. Same could be true of Saturn and Jupiter, but it's much easier to tell if you've found the right target. The moons of Jupiter, albeit tiny points of light, are always interesting, especially if you observe on consecutive nights. The moon goes without saying. Moon observation is a hobby unto itself.
Observing the sun is really dependent on sun spot activity. If there are sunspots to observe, that's at least something to see. Otherwise, through a plain 4" scope, the sun isn't particularly interesting aside from a bright orb that looks like a balloon (look up Coronado telescopes if you really want to see how amazing the sun can look through a telescope. The pictures you see is what it looks like at the lens).
good luck. hth,
jeff
Jupiter and Saturn are very bright and can easily be located. Both feature things that are instantly recognizable, but invisible with the naked eye. The Gallelian Moons for Jupiter, and the rings for Saturn. I used a cheap 4 inch telescope in high school and it worked perfectly.
Actually, no. As far as telescopes are concerned, focal length is analogous to digital zoom, and aperture is analogous to the camera's sensor resolution. (Telescope resolving capability is a lesson in diffraction-limited optics, which makes an interesting lesson that may be slightly beyond school kids' level.)
You're not interested in how much you can magnify the blurry splotch. You're interested in the details you can or cannot resolve. It's much better to have a small image of the cloud bands on Jupiter than to have a great big image of an out-of-focus tribble.
"Turn Left at Orion" by Guy Consolmagno. Great book oriented toward small telescopes in the 60mm-100mm range.
The moon is of course a great target -- crescent is best. Jupiter is terrific, and even if your scope is a mess the Galilean moons are certainly easy to see and of historical importance. I've been able to count bands pretty easily with my 90mm refractor, but I've modded it to improve contrast. Cheap Chinese refractors often have exposed screws and shiny forward surfaces that can be fixed with Sharpie. Saturn is great, depending on how the rings are oriented. Mars is kind of ho-hum with 100mm. I'd assign Venus through binoculars if its position permits. You can at least make out its phases.
If light pollution is bad, then you aren't going to have much luck with nebulae, but binary stars are great, as are clusters and asterisms. The Pleiades (M45) are a must of course, and they're also a good naked eye object. Lots of education to be got out of those. They're about the nearest interesting thing there is to look at, and you can tie it in with anthropology if you want because they're a naked eye object.
Brocchi's Cluster is one of my favorites, and not so well known. Quite pretty, looks a bit like a coathanger. The Beehive (M44) is also nice.
Gemini offers the open cluster M35, which is OK, but one of the interesting things is to look at Castor and Pollux through a small telescope. There's a really nice color contrast that is not visible to the naked eye.
Speaking of color contrast, Albireo (at the head of the Cygnus swan) is one of the nicest small scope targets there are -- an absolutely gorgeous double star with a nice red/blue color difference. It's absolutely perfect for a scope in the 100mm range; it doesn't really get any better in a big light bucket.
Nu Draconis is another double star that's always visble in the Northern Hemisphere. I once split Nu Draconis with a pair of 10x50 binoculars hand held, if you call lying on the hood of a car with the eye cups balance on my eyebrows "hand held". It's not easy with binoculars, but a cinch to split with even a 60mm refractor.
And don't neglect binoculars! Most families have a pair somewhere, and you can do some great things with them. They're just about the best thing for Andromeda (M31) which is huge -- 4 degrees across. It's hard to take it all in with a larger telescope, although your 100mm with the longest FL, widest apparent field eyepiece you have will give nice views too.
Remember, even a really cheap pair of binoculars is way better than anything Galileo ever had! The main problem is that most pairs have too much magnification for hand holding; 7x is best if you don't have some kind of support. Perhaps you could make a few copy scopes and pass them around for assignments.
One thing you can do is mount a pair of 10x binoculars in a box with a mirror so you can look down at a comfortable 45 degrees. A first surface mirror is ideal (available through surplus stores) but even a glass fronted mirror is an improvement over trying to handhold a pair of binocs with too much magnification. You can use this kind of setup with "Turn Left" or with the "National Audubon Society Field Guide to Constellations of the Northern Skies". This is a terrific pocket reference for use with binoculars, as it facilitates star hopping and identifies the most interesting objects in each constellation that can be seen with naked eye or small telescopes.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
How about a paypal account for the purpose of the OP buying a new 8" reflector? Then we'll see how much the Slashdot joke meisters promote Science.
Before the budget cuts, their object collision budget was only 1 million dollars, which only allowed them to scan 3% of the sky :)
How is the Starship Enetrprise like toilet paper? Both circle Uranus looking for Klingons
------
Bennet is doing his neighbor's wife when he thinks her husband is coming home. Startled, he jumps up and runs right into the wall, hardon first.
The woman exclaims "Bennet!"
He groans "Bent it? I think I broke it!"
Free Martian Whores!
If you're asking that question it makes me think you're not very versed in using a telescope. Which has some problems.
4" lens is pretty much meaningless as far as getting help. Is this an APO refractor? Newtonian? What kind of mount and is it motorized (I wouldn't want an adult to see through very high magnification on a non-motorized mount let alone a kid) ? These variables really change what I would try to view.
There are tons of sites/programs that will map out a viewing session for you for a given location and date. And as mentioned the Moon is usually worth watching in any situation.
Past that, you need to practice finding things in a scope. It's not as easy as many think. The moon most people can get, but beyond that it gets tricky and a lot of would be backyard astonomers give up. Even a planet you can see with your eye can be frustrating to find in a scope. The one piece of equipment most people with telescopes need, but don't have, is a zero reflex finder like a telrad. This will make finding things with your scope *much* easier. Those little spotting scopes that comes with most telescopes are worthless for most backyard uses unless you have a lot of practice using them. A telrad lets you point your scope with both eyes open with good precision. There's even charts for finding things specifically with a telrad..
It's not overly daunting. But you have to take this seriously to give the kids a good show. If you're willing to put in 10 hours of so of work, you can show them some cool things. It's won't be the best time of the year to view Orion (one of the cooler things to look at and easier things to find). But there will be things out there worth seeing.
I know its not a one night job, but maybe some visual observations of variables for extra credit thru the entire year?
Yeah it is a bit late to start now:
You'll be spending alot of time at the AAVSO website, may as well start here:
http://www.aavso.org/publications/manual/
Basically, you learn two skills, star hopping from beta cep to tau cep, and then you compare the brightness of tau cep with its neighbors which have fixed, known magnitudes to estimate tau cep magnitude today.
http://www.aavso.org/images/starhopping.gif
It has the virtue of being free, if nothing else.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
I had looked at the moon forever with the naked eye, and a few times through a couple of lenses, including a backyard telescope. Then, because there was going to be an occultation, I had a chance to look at Jupiter through a pair of binocs. I was blown away that something that close had that much structure -- you could see just scads of moons!
To instil a sense of Science, give the kids tools that they can use well beyond your classes. To this day, when I see Orion in the night sky, he seems like an old friend. When I see Mars waxing and waning, it helps me keep track of time through its two year cycle. Have them look at impressive things, but make sure you give them the tools to find the same objects with their naked eyes. Unless these kids become astronomers, they'll spend at most a few hours behind glass, but will have the rest of their lives to look up at the night sky with their eyes.
One of the coolest things I've learned as a closet amateur astronomer is that the dark side of the moon is illuminated by backwash from the earth, or earthshine. OK, that makes sense if you think about it. But this fact was known almost 100 years ago, and we have a nearly complete record of the brightness of the dark side of the moon since then. That record is important because earthshine is directly related to the amount of terrestrial cloud cover, and that is related to climate. I wish I had known that as a kid, because I'd often wondered why you could see the dark side of the moon better (brighter) on some nights than on others.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
First, The universe is, on a large scale uniform. That basically means the sky will look the same in any telescope: Black with white dots. That in itself in an important fact worth seeing, but quite boring.
Second, The images on Google Sky and other all star surveys have spoiled us, and we all expect spectacular full color images. What you actually see will never meet this. Expect some disappointment.
With expectations set, I would focus on what is not uniform: First tie it all in with Google earth, and history from a geocentric to a heliocentric view. Look at what Galileo looked at from our moon to the Jovian moons, and how this changed mankind.
Look at some galaxies, and find one that looks like ours. Again combine with Google Sky.
Also use the telescope to look at our star, the sun: Aim the telescope at the sun, and project the image onto the wall. DO NOT LOOK INTO THE TELESCOPE. You should have a 2 meter diameter projection of our sun on the wall. Features like sunspots should be clear and sharp.
Depending on time and class:
1. Use the 'scope and a green laser to measure distance to moon.
2. Measure redshift of nearby galaxies see http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Physics/8-02Electricity-and-MagnetismSpring2002/VideoAndCaptions/detail/embed35.htmconvertingredshiftintoradialvelocity
3. Use as an accurate sextant, measure size of earth
4. Track IIS and satellites
5. Do a parallax calculation using some nearby stars. Picking good candidates are part of the exercise.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
It takes several nights (and several hours per night) of viewing, but the most dramatic "wow, there's really stuff happening up there!" class project I've seen is calculating the orbital periods of Jupiter's moons. With just a 'scope, if you look at Jupiter, and then use a stopwatch to find the times for each of the moons going out of frame, and then have your kids plot those points out on graph paper. Do this at hour intervals for 3 nights running, you can then fit sine curves to the points and see what the orbital period of the moons is.
You can also do this with a digital camera with a decent sized lens (most of the SLRs with the 1.6 or so multiplier and a 300mm lens will work well), just counting pixels of separation.
The "wow, that's not just static" realization can be profound.
I haven't built a web page yet for this experiment, but I do have a spreadsheet to do the graphing automatically, drop me an email if you'd like further class materials and maybe that'll get me to build the page for this.
Two ideas:
Use Stellarium (http://www.stellarium.org) to prepare for observations. Maybe classwide.
Check out the observation material for the galileoscope (www.galileoscope.org).
The scope itself is nice too, especially for the money.
typo in link
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Physics/8-02Electricity-and-MagnetismSpring2002/VideoAndCaptions/detail/embed35.htm @ 8 min 40 seconds
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
NASA has a website for educators:
http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/index.html
Most missions have a public outreach person who will send materials to teachers for use in their classroom.
And for those joking about looking at the sun, see :
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/classroom/for_students.html
http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/classroom/classroom.shtml
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Only problem I foresee is that with a 4" telescope, unless there's some kind of tracking mechanism, regardless of what you're looking at, cycling through a bunch of kids will be difficult as the object/detail in question will have moved and the telescope will need to be constantly re-pointed. THAT will be the toughest part in my opinion. You can reduce the problem by paying close attention to the pivoting mechanisms on the telescope (possibly with some dry runs without the kids) so that the one axis points to celestial north and the other along the celestial plane. If you're tracking the moon or Jupiter, then a turn of only one of the knobs (this thing does have a tracking mechanism, right?) will keep it in the scope.
Cue the piling on as I'm sure my description is un-artful and /. is an unforgiving crowd.
Ibid.
Well,
Seems like you had a load of replies and a lot of great suggestions! Personally I would save the moon for last as it will be very bright and will mess up your night vision if you view it first.
M42 should be quite visible in a 4 inch and is a great nebula to view.
I would suggest contacting a local Astronomy club, being a member of one myself we can provide bigger scopes for you and your students to look through, I personally would tote a 12.5 inch Dobs and a 8 inch Schmidt-cassegrain with other bringing 10 - 12 inch scopes as well. Plus we really enjoy doing that and everyone can hop scope to scope seeing much more and taking less time with just one scope.
Well I hope you make it to this post and I hope their is a club near you that will come out and help!
Most of all i hope it is Enjoyable for you!
Yeah, definitely have to at least try the double cluster. It's one of the easiest clusters to spot, and looks pretty cool just through binos.
The enemies of Democracy are
Might I also suggest the bedroom window of the young widow Johnson at about 10:30pm...
Stellarium, http://www.stellarium.org/, is a free open source planetarium for you computer. It will give you lots of ideas on what can be seen with both the naked eye and your 4" telescope from your location at any particular time.
I am a member of a central NY state astronomy club and we'd do it, if you lived near here. One of our members would go to your school and give an appropriate to age group talk. We'd also bring our equipment. If you need to do it yourself, you might contact a local group for live advice.
Any all-girls dorms nearby?
Can I recommend the site www.skymaps.com ? They provide free for personal use monthly skymaps with notes of items to see with the naked eye, binoculars and small telescopes. Very handy for small groups.
Keep an eye out for open bedroom windows in the evening hours, you might catch a glimpse of some heavenly bodies. There's also the chance of some not so heavenly bodies, some as damaging to your eyes as the sun. So viewer beware!
Start with some of the Free software - stellarium and such. That way you can work in the classroom, in the day time, and since it is Free they can take it home as well.
As for what to view at night, well, the sky is hte limit. Use the software to help ID what you are seeing, use the software to find things that would be cool to see (Orions Nebula, Mars, Jupiter, etc.)
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
Find a local astronomy club! I'm sure they would be more than enthused to do a public outreach viewing event for you. Not only are they more familiar with the night sky, but you can be sure they'll bring everything from 4" scopes up through 20" Dobsonians. Make it an event for not only your class, but all the kids in your school! You'll get to see a lot more that way. Here is a good place to start... http://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/
Through a 4" telescope you can't see any detail on planetary disks, but you can see more or less exactly what Galileo saw when he first used a telescope: moons of Jupiter, the shape of Saturn etc. From a teaching perspective this should help: talk about his discoveries and what he inferred.
The moon (when not full) is rich in detail even through a small scope. Mars is bright now: explain how its orbit brings it closest once every two years.
Direct observation of the sun by kids looking through a cheap scope is going to be dangerous even with a filter, and obviously pretty lethal without. However with an appropriate set up you can use the scope to project the sun's disk safely onto a bit of card and everyone can observe sunspots (and compare with the latest images from SOHO).
Working through the history of astronomy: look up the Messier catalogue of 'fuzzy objects': the Orion nebula, the Pleides and other star clusters. Explain what they are.
One other thing if you can pick your times is to try and observe satellites, the ISS etc. NASA gives flyby times.
If you have an iPhone or iPod touch, there's an app called 'Planets' which is free and makes it very easy to locate the planets:
http://www.apptism.com/apps/planets
The app gives you the azimuth and elevation of the various planets. Venus and Mercury are tough because they are pretty much always in the general direction of the sun due to the geography of the whole situation. The sun being so bright, it's hard to see them.
Mars and Jupiter are pretty good bets I think.
Not sure how powerful a 4" telescope is, but this list may be useful:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brightest_stars
Also, I'm particularly fascinated with Eta Carinae.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eta_carinae
Watch Jupiter's moons. The orbital periods are a few days to about a month for the Galilean moons. Have them chart the separation between Jupiter and and each moon, and they should be able to measure the orbits even if they only get a night or two a week. Then have them test Kepler's laws of motion. It may not be cutting edge, but it is science, and there's pedagogical value in reproducing historical results.
considering your time constraints, and trying to get several students up to the telescope one at a time, a star tracker is an absolute must. You'd be strongly advised to get some kind of setup with a computer camera attached to the telescope so you can spend 1/2 the event with the students getting hands-on with the telescope eyepiece, and the other 1/2 of the timeslot showing the entire group five times as many other objects live while huddled around a laptop screen. The hands-on is important, but having a live camera to the scope that the entire group can look at all at once will allow you to cover a lot more ground in a night, and make things much less boring for the students.
You can also record the live observations to be used later in classroom activities, and for those students that are forced to miss one of the few nights you do manage to pull off.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
A high-quality 4 inch refractor can show some amazing details. They are used for some serious amateur astronomy. They can also be amazingly expensive.
If what you have is a 4 inch newtonian from Wal-Mart (most likely) then stick to the moon, Jupiter and Saturn, as many people have pointed out.
The previous comments list some good targets. When you go looking for them with your 4" telescope, here are some suggestions for giving your students the best viewing experience. First off, when hunting for deep-sky objects like galaxies and nebula, wait for the Moon to go away. Otherwise it will light up the sky and wash everything out. Also, you're lucky if you live in a rural area, but if you don't, see if you can get away from the city lights. Bringing a chair or, even better, an adjustable stool will help your students to look through the telescope. This gives your eye some stability and is usually compared to increasing your aperture by an inch or so in terms of the detail you will see. Have your students sketch what they see. If they've forgotten how to draw, have them take some photos of the Moon through the telescope with their cell phones. It's easy to look at Mars and see a red ball, but if you have to draw it on a piece of paper, you notice all the details that you would have otherwise ignored. Finally, some color filters might be a good investment. They can help increase the contrast for planetary targets, you can swap them out and compare what you see with each color, and you can have your students come up with an explanation why they see different details through each filter.
Has anyone suggested the Moon yet?
Pleiades - the 'Seven Sisters', is one of the most beautiful of astronomical sights, at least to me. It also covers a large part of the sky, so should be easy to find and certainly doesn't require a bit scope to see well.
You might also see if there are any visible comets going by at the time you do this; that would be fun.
There's a couple items that need to be known to advise properly. where are you? if your in the Northern part of the U.S. then you nights start sooner that those of us in the Southern section. (i'm in Arizona) you'll want to consider starting observing well after dusk. also, you mention you are in a rural area. that should help; i am assuming you are not near, or in, a large city. clear, dark skies are always the best, particularly for smaller telescopes. I'm looking at the 2009 Skygazer's Almanac. It's published early each year by Sky and Telescope magazine; i'm unsure which specific month it comes out.
Saturn will be prominent March thru April. It will be among the brightest objects in the sky. Jupiter will be viewable during the fall, so is Neptune and Uranus but they are tough to verify in a 4" even in the best of skies. Mars is receding from it's closest appraoch to Earth this month, so it may show well in a 4" but may not be in the Sky during the evening hours. The Orion nebula will be South to Southwest during the earlier part of the evening (meaning it may be too low in the West later); it's the most viewable of the nebula objects and, again, if the moon is small and sky clear it should still make a good impression on young students.
Many people think that the best time to look at the moon is when it is full. This is the worst time to use a telescope other than when it is cloudy. It is washed out and flat. Try with no more than 1/2 moon then you can see the rough surface due to the shadows. It is worth looking at when full but far better otherwise
The next most important thing is to practice where you will be setting up. You need to be familiar with the sky. Find the planets beforehand so you can point out the ones that are up and some of the major constellations. Remember planets move around a bit as well. If you are some where that is humid, it can be helpful to have a bright spotlight. You can point out locations in the sky. Show them where the Zodiac is (the constellations that the sun rises in and the planets move through). Jupiter and Saturn are also good. If clear and dark enough you can show them the milky way.
Lastly I would hope you have a plan of what to say. I talk about Galileo and the arguments that were being made about the sky before the telescope was pointed at the sky. The moon was thought to be basically featureless and round. Point out the moon and ask them to look at it for a minute. No one had seen a much better view than you are seeing now.
Someone (probably Galileo) first pointed a telescope at the moon and then saw this Prepare for a gasp when they look.
Everything went around the earth, then Jupiter, “see the little dots they move around” and you can see this from night to night in a pattern
One more thing. if your scope does not have a motor mount you will need to frequently move it to make up for the turning of the earth. Also people will bump it and the next person will see nothing but black. This is tricky as they will not tell you if they do not see anything.
4" telescope isn't enough information. What you need is also a good eyepiece, which is just as important. With a good 4" telescope (TeleVue, Takahashi or many others that cost anywhere between $900 and $4000), you can see plenty, with a mediocre one ($90 at Sears for example), you can see the moon, that's about it. Anything else will look washed out... A 4", will let you see Jupiter on a dark calm night. Saturn and its rings on almost any night, and check out M13...
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Jupiter and its moons are important because of Galileo, and Galileo used Jupiter and moons as an analogy for the Copernican helio-centric model. Venus can also serve that purpose if it is showing a crescent -- the phases of Venus were further support for Copernicus according to Galileao.
Next, point out objects such as the Big Dipper. It actually is a star cluster, only we are too close to it to notice. Work your way out to the Pleiades and the Bee Hive. You can point out that the Pleiades appear on the hood ornament of a popular Japanese car as "Subaru" is the name for the Pleiades in Japan.
Depending on season, try the Orion Nebula as an active formation region of a star cluster, some of the more distance "galactic" star clusters in the Milky Way. Revert to the naked eye and point out the Milky Way (if able depending on light pollution and weather) and the "dark rifts" in the Milky Way (those are not the absence of stars, rather they are the presence of dust -- the heavy elements out of which you and I are made out of and where are heavy elements came from).
Next, try for a globular cluster such as M-13. Tell the story of Harlow Shapley and the discovery that the center of the Milky Way is in Sagittarius instead of us being in the center.
Finally, wrap up with a view of M-31, and explain how Edwin Hubble discovered Cephiad variables in it and discovered it to be remote. Point out Polaris (the North Star) and explain that it is a Cephiad -- that it is a reasonably distant star, but we see it because of its high luminosity. Tell the story of Hubble's discovery of the "spirals" as being "island universes" like our Milky Way, red shift, and what I call the "Copernican Revolution of the 20th Century", where M-31 was the stepping stone to finding out how freakin' large the Universe is and how we are such a small speck in it.
Also, moderate expectations of what they are going to see. Explain that large telescopes taking long photographic or CCD time exposures can show much more dramatic views of the same objects, but they are looking at what they see in those famous pictures with their own eyeball, first hand, through your telescope. Also give them a primer on averted vision on how to see faint objects. Finally, explain that through the telescope what they are seeing of M-31 is mainly the central core, and that M-31 is a much vaster and fainter object that extends well beyond the telescope field.
Better yet, you could make them calculate the orbital plane of all celestial bodies. Just give them 6 orbital variables (aka elements/parameters), and let them have fun. And add to this, an old DOS machine, and a GW-BASIC interpreter, and simple equations for plotting 3D on computer screen, and they will have a blast. Hint: start with 10 RANDOMIZE TIMER:SCREEN 1 -- that will give you 320x200 screen, plenty to plot the whole solar system!
Have them look at Uranus
I think just looking at the stars is not nearly as great as trying to find out how much you can infer from observations.
Astronomy is the probably the science which requires the highest level of skill in inferring information, or trying to get at information in a bit round-about way, as it's kind of difficult to actually modify the universe on a large scale just to test a theory. And in my experience, I'd say inference is a skill not nearly taught enough nowadays - astronomy could be the subject for it.
If you have access to them, the BBC showed a program series called rough science which had a couple of interesting little experiments you could do - like calculating the diameter of a crater on the moon - with the most trivial of things at your disposal, and also trying to come up with a useful margin of error for their own measurements.
In the same program, they then also had a different group trying to measure the diameter of another crater here on earth (which they took the team to), by making the triangulate a point on the other side of the crater (if no crater at hand, you could do a practice session, trying to find the distance from the current position to a landmark nearby -- without allowing the students to actually just walk/drive over and measure the distance, but to gain that information from their own vantage points. (again, also get them to come up with a margin of error).
In both cases, in the end compare the student-found results with actual data...
Actually, the students should spend time searching for them.
On the Web. Ahead of time, as part of the project.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
I bet they'd be happy to take an afternoon off and teach some kids about their hobby. They could probably bring along some more serious equipment, be more interesting, and keep their attention far longer than you'll be able to on the subject.
moox. for a new generation.
"I am as new to telescope use as my students," and yet you are teaching Astronomy.
Proof of what is wrong with American education. "Those who can't, teach."
If you haven't used Google Sky Maps yet it is the best tool to visually point out where stars are, combine that with a telescope and you'll fly through the sky in no time.
You just hold the phone up to the stars and it shows you a perfect image view per view of what youre looking at, pointing out which stars are what and you can choose the level of detail.
I know I always had a problem when younger and people saying "see that star..." and me "you mean that one around the other thousand".
This tool is so great and I am sure one of your students has a Android device, the app is FREE.
OK, so everyone agrees a lens just bigger than a pair of eyeglasses isn't gonna get it done. Let's talk about getting him better gear. Can he grind a bigger lens? Can someone donate? Would an array of mirrors be possible? If MacGuyver's life depended on finding the red spot on Jupiter, and all he had was a pack of gum and a lighter, how we he get it done?
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
...if any of your students think they've seen an alien spacecraft, *do not dismiss their findings.* Alien invasions are usually discovered by amateur astronomers and schoolchildren, but nobody believes them until it's too late and the aliens are already destroying major landmarks and slaughtering puny humans.
Spekkio Master of War
Most of the posts have focused on what you'll be able or unable to see with your telescope. I'm going to suggest something different which, I think, can add to their overall understanding of astronomy. Get a plastic Davis Mark 3 sextant. They go on eBay for about $30 or so. With it, you can measure the distances between objects in the sky. Even without a telescope, there are a lot of eye-opening things you'll notice about the heavens once you start paying close attention. For example, you can measure the angle between the moon and some celestial object along it's path. You'll be stunned at how much the moon moves relative to the stars and planets from one evening to the next. You'll wonder how you never noticed that before. By calculating how many degrees it moves in 24 hours (or even in just a few hours), you can figure out how many days it would take to go 360 degrees and return to it's original position... and you'll find it comes to about 28 days... the time it takes for the moon to go through all of it's phases. Note, however, you need to do it with some star along the moon's path. Easiest to pick one very adjacent (to the east or west) to the moon on your first night of sighting.
Also, with a sextant, you can sight the north star and know you latitude at any time of night. Once you're able to do that, you could sail a ship to the latitude of your destination and then sail directly east or west, along that latitude, until you made landfall. If you also know the exact time it is (whereupon you can discuss the huge reward the English parliament offered for an accurate ship-board timepiece), you can sight the sun when it's directly overhead and know your longitude as well. It would take some very careful explaining in order to get 9th graders to understand the gist of it, but then they'd realize why all of those scientists in the renaissance concerned themselves with the motions of the planets, stars, and moon. Celestial navigation was GPS before we had GPS. Even as recently as world war II, this is how the ships and aircraft figured out where they were. Because of this, the motion of the heavens, and their impact upon maritime navigation, we a seriously big deal for centuries.
Also, set up a little sighting post in the middle of a circle... kind of like a big sundial. At sunrise and sunset, look at the sun over the post and mark the direction on the perimeter of the circle. The idea is to make a little "Stonehenge", whereupon you record the directions to the rise/set of the sun (and moon, if you want). You don't have to do it every day... maybe just once per week. That will be enough for you to see that the sun rise/set doesmove and you can even tell when the equinox is (when the rise and set are directly opposite each other on the circle) and when the solstice is (when the rise/set positions stop moving in one direction and start moving back the other way).
So, I guess to summarize, I'd focus on the stuff that makes (or, at least, made) astronomy useful. Sure, we can look through monsterous telescopes and see fantastic nebulae and clusters... and that makes for a great desktop wallpaper (yes, yes, I know... it also tells us things about their composition and about the origin of the universe and may expand our understanding of physics someday. I mean "useful" in the sense of being able to help a plain ol' person in the world do something they'd have trouble doing otherwise, like sail across an ocean, or plant their crops at the right time).
Now, as to what to do with the telescope... you might want to turn it on Jupiter and start recording the positions of the moons. I guess I'm a kind of a "know your roots" guy. Galileo first thought they were stars... finding it curious that there were so many right next to it. Then, he noticed that they moved, and sometimes disappeared. Later, he had the epiphany that they must be moons, and the "disappearing" was when they went behind or in front of Jupiter. This revelation is what caused him to realize th
I have a 4.7 inch telescope and I can see cloud bands on Jupiter. It won't look like "just a glowing white dot", and they won't see any phases on it.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
I've regularly volunteered to give astronomy classes to the Girl Scouts in my area using a 4.5" Newtonian telescope. The kids, teachers, and myself always have a great time.
I hope the following ideas will help out:
*** ENVIRONMENT ***
The farther away you are from the city and any local street lamps or cars, the more objects you'll be able to see.
This lets the optics come to thermal equilibrium with the ambient outside temperature. If you don't do this; the image will waver and be quite blurry while the optics expand/contract.
It will take about 30 minutes from the last exposure to white light for our eyes to get acquainted to the dark. We see much better after that. I'd suggest using the time for discussions and naked eye observations.
Using red light helps us keep that night vision just mentioned.
*** OBJECTS ***
The objects you have available all depend upon what latitude you're located, and what time of year.
Depending on your time constraints, and the attention span of 9th graders; you probably only want to pick 3 - 4 objects. Make sure you know what they are, have background info on them, and have used the telescope to spot them before. If you're not practiced at using a telescope, it can be quite frustrating finding the correct objects you want at first. Even with a spotting scope.
Stars Taking a look at a star in a telescope is only going to give you a pin point of light; and possibly some color. For effect, I like showing the contrast between naked eye observations and using the telescope. Personally, I like using double/triple star systems. Let the kids make note of "one star". Then, when looking through the telescope it becomes apparent that the one star is actually 2 or 3. The 2 or 3 stars that you see might not be a binary or tertiary star system, but are in fact just appear to be because of their line of sight.
Star clusters Again, I like using star clusters to show them what the telescope brings out. The Pleiades is a fantastic example. Naked eye observations only shows 6 stars. With the telescope this becomes hundreds.
Nebulae A 4" telescope wont bring out a lot of detail on nebula, but you will be able to see it. Depending upon which one you look at. I love using the Orion's nebula; but since its a winter constellation you might not have this option.
If you decide to look at a nebula; there is a trick to it. Don't look at it directly. Focus the telescope on the nebula. Now, as you look, focus your attention just to the side of it. The wispy body of nebula appear best just to the side of where you are actually looking. Also, move the point of where you are looking - not the telescope, your eye. This movement also brings out more of the nebula's wispy appearance.
Galaxy Use the same observational tricks to view a galaxy as you do with a nebula.
Planets Mars is at its closest to Earth it has been in a very long time. Its great through a telescope. Even better is Jupiter. Its quite large and, depending upon the date/time, you'll be able to see up to 4 of the Jovian moons. However, the tried and true show stopper for most of my observations has always been Saturn. To me its not as big, nor are the moons as easy to spot. But the rings always bring out a gasp among the kids.
Best of luck!
Certainly the foregoing suggestions for object to view are good. In your four-inch telescope, you have an instrument bigger and more powerful than Galileo had. Use it to sight objects that can be "jumping-of places" for further inquiry. You can measure the heights of mountains on the Moon from their shadows (tying astronomy into trigonometry). You can see the Galilean satellites of Jupiter, and measure their periods; they were once (before accurate chronometers) proposed as a celestial clock for navigators, and use this to discuss time and timekeeping. Watch sunspots develop, and note that the Sun rotates with different periods at different latitudes, showing it is not solid. Watch a bright variable star, such as Algol, change in brightness and try to figure out why it does this. And in addition to the telescope, I highly recommend a pair of 7x50 binoculars: they are wide field, easy to hold, and show that the misty band of the Milky Way is indeed stars. Finally, use all the observations to make the point that there are only four fundamental things that can be determined by astronomers through a telescope: direction in the sky (Note: not distance, directly), total brightness; distribution of brightness over wavelength (spectrum); and the polarization of the light. Plus the changes in these data over time. EVERYTHING else about astronomical objects is inference from physical principles, tying it all into physics. From teaching astronomy for many decades, I urge you to "light a fire, not fill a bucket;" i.e., inspire to further learning, don't just dump data into students. Concepts are more important than numbers. And don't forget to simply enjoy the celestial spectacle. Lastly, if you wish to connect the celestial to the terrestrial human, there are hundreds of references to the sky in literature, poetry, painting, sculpture, instrument-making, architecture, and history. Enjoy!
1. You don't need to go outside of town to see the rings of Saturn.
2. There are no canals on Mars. It's an optical illusion.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
... actually, under half-way decent observing conditions i.e. dark sky and stable atmosphere one CAN see the major cloud bands on Jupiter with a 4" scope. I can see them with my 3.5" scope.
With my 70mm (2.75") telescope, I can see Saturn's rings more clearly than either of those photos, and 2 cloud bands on Jupiter. What'll influence how well you can see them more than the diameter of your lens is the focal lengths of your telescope and eyepiece and the quality of the lenses. My scope has a 600mm focal length, so with my 9mm eyepiece, I get about 67x magnification (600/9). I have a 2x barlow, which makes the image bigger, but it's not very good quality, so it blurs it so much that it's not worth using.
I'd recommend Jupiter, Saturn, the Orion Nebula and the Pleiades. They're all super easy to locate once you know where to look (you can see them all with the naked eye...just not very well!). Also, definitely get a good look at the moon. It's more interesting when it's not full, since that gives you more relief. Unless you have a filter, with a 4" main lens, the moon is going to be pretty bright.
Convert RSS to HTML - integrate webfeeds into your website
Try the forums on cloudynights.com http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?Cat=
The nice thing about that site is ... if some of its members are close to your school, they can EASILY be talked into doing a show for you. Amateur astronomers love to show off their scopes and in general walk newbies through the night sky.
You didn't say whether you had a 4 inch reflector or a 4 inch refractor. I'm assuming a mirror scope. If you got it cheaply, the higher quality one would be the mirror one, but collomating a dobsonian, while easy, is not immediately obvious to newbies.
Also, ask this question from the point of view of binoculars. Many large objects in the night sky can be viewed with binoculars and those should also be good in a 4" dobsonian. Note, if you have a cheap 4" refractor, then it's a bit of a crap shoot as to whether you'll be able to get good views.
M42 - the great Orion Nebula should still be visible early evening in April. It's amazing
Double stars may be good. There's one in the handle of the big dipper. There's also one near Vega which will be rising starting in early evening in April. There are a ton of others, but these 2 (4?) should be pretty easy to find.
Also, "Carbon Stars" are fun. Just google and look around for them. Most stars do not show colors, but carbon stars are very obviously red and again they're all over the place.
Unfortunately April is when the Andromeda galaxy is too low in the sky for the early evening. Try again in the summer.
to ask around to see if any other amateur astronomers might come out and lend there scope?
As far as object, there are two thing I like to show people.
A close up of the moon. It has feature people can relate to, and it's kind of awe inspiring to watch it Zoom by.
If your scope is good enough, any object with rings. That is also pretty awe inspiring.
What not to look at:
Anything that just look like a bigger bright spot.
Oh, and don't look at the Sun with your remaining eye.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I started to type something up about my experiences, but then found this which was much better than what I was typing...
http://irwincur.tripod.com/ten_best_obj_-_small_telescope.htm
The sun is mostly interesting to look at (with a proper dark lens) if there are sun spots. Check spaceweather.com to see if there any sun spots on the day you view. You can have the kids determine the spin rate of the sun by using sun spots, which can be a cool exercise.
Other interesting objects that can be observed with a 4" telescope:
* Great Orion nebula
* The moon
* Pleiades
* Andromeda galaxy.
For celestial viewing, a telescope increases your light gathering ability (as the square of the diameter of the scope). So, the four inch (10 cm) telescope collects about 100 times the amount of light as your 1 cm pupil. Since there isn't much magnification going on, don't let the kids think they'll see much detail of anything they look at; the real advantage is the light gathering.
Have some analogies ready. For example, Andromeda galaxy is 2,500,000 light years away. Explain what a light year is by saying how many times you'd have to drive from your town to the nearest big city to cover the same distance.
Also, practice spotting objects before hand. It doesn't take me long to find Andromeda, but I have lots of practice. The first few times I looked it did take awhile. And that was without 20 crumb crunchers asking what was taking so long.
Take the opportunity to teach the children in science classes what appears to be the most important lesson about science that teachers have been hammering into the kids for many years: Science is boring. Make sure that they have to do many hours of calculations for a 30 second chance at looking through the telescope. Afterwards, make them write a 6 page essay about the experience, and how it effects global warming and the snail darter. Pound it into them that there is nothing intresting about science. Go on for hours about how you only got 15 seconds when you were younger. Then tell them the long boring details about how you make your own aspirin in the chemistry lab.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
Get a laptop. Load some hubble images on it. Put the laptop a few hundred feet away. Enjoy seeing what a billion dollar telescope can see.
You should also be able to do some naked eye observations such as:
Observe the track of the Moon across the sky over a month.
Watch the rotation of the starts over a night (or several hours)
Watch an upcomming meteor shower. The next one is the Lyrids on April 21: http://stardate.org/nightsky/meteors/
Astronomy site/forums. http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?Cat= Possibly the beginner's forum would be a good place to ask. http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/postlist.php/Cat/0/Board/beginners
We did this when I was in 7th grade and kept track of the sunspots. I don't remember if we saw rotation or not, but we did see some sunspots come and go.
I remember this being very profound. The sun isn't just a light in the sky, it's a huge burning nuclear reaction way the fuck out there and we can still feel the heat!
Using http://www.heavens-above.com I was very impressed with seeing the space station zoom by during a clear day
Most people, when you point that out, go "No you can't!" .... then they think a bit and go "oh yeah, I never really noticed."
Or if it's raining outside, there's always Uranus.
Try http://www.stellarium.org/ - it's a virtual planetarium. After studies with software, even weaker telescopes are nice to work with, they'll confirm previous work and the whole (software + telescopes) will be more satisfying.
Seeing Jupiters moons MOVE is a huge thing. Maybe you could have each kid draw where they see the moons when they look thru the telescope. Then let them cycle thru again. If you've got an hour or so, the moons will visibly move. Definately see if you've got any active amateur astronomy clubs in the area. Amateurs love to come out and show kids the sky, and the fact that we build our own equipment is in of itself an inspiration for some kids. A lot of amateurs are used to making long trips for night skies, I'm sure if you're 100mi from any major population, I'm sure you'll be able to get somebody to come out.
In addition to a real telescope, programs like Celestia[1] and Stellarium[2] may be appropriate for classroom use. They are both available on Mac, Linux, and Windows. Stellarium can show you the sky as you'd see it with the naked eye, with a telescope, or up close (say to a planet). I remember thinking how interesting it was to use Celestia to fly a long ways away from the earth and see the constellations change and move kind of like Star Trek's Stellar Cartography. It's kind of fun to fly directly to the stars in Orion's belt and have everything move accurately. Really reinforced the idea the constellations only make sense from here on earth and that they are really stars in 3-D, which is easy to forget just gazing up at the sky. Fascinating stuff.
Maybe with a couple of LCD projectors you could build your own planetarium with Stellarium[3].
Beyond that, in future years, doing your own CCD photography may be beneficial for the kids you teach. People are taking pretty neat pictures with backyard reflectors, such as yours, and hacked web cams.
[1] http://www.shatters.net/celestia
[2] http://www.stellarium.org/
[3] http://www.stellarium.org/wiki/index.php/Building_your_own_dome
There are lots of low Earth orbit satellites that you can't see them with a telescope - but you can track with a simple aerial and UHF handheld radio. The obvious benefit of this is that it doesn't really matter if it's cloudy or daytime; if the satellite is up there you'll hear it and be able to track it across the sky. Bonus prize for learning enough Morse to understand its callsign.
The AAVSO ( http://www.aavso.org/ ) should have plenty of real science they could do with a 4" telescope.
While you are looking at the moon with the telescope. You might want to interest some of the students in looking for satellites. This is also dependent on your location. If you are in a rural area.
But The Mote in God's Eye isn't?
I guess we all pick and choose our reality.
A few I can think of off the top of my head:
1. The Andromeda galaxy
2. The Orion Nebula (second "star" in the sword)
3. The beehive cluster in the center of Cancer
Check one of the free open-source astronomy programs like KStars and look for deep sky objects below a certain magnitude (4.0 maybe). There aren't a ton of them, but even a few are enough to capture a child's interest.
You could also see if you could put aside a night to look for a meteor shower, if it's the right time of year for one of the bigger ones (Perseids, Geminids, etc). You can look for the ISS as it passes through your area. There's a lot of great stuff to find the night sky besides the closer planets and craters of the Moon (though those are fun too).
"Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?"
Orion's dick
All you're really going to get with that is the Moon, or the Sun if you have a solar filter for it.
Maybe, just maybe, on a very clear night with great seeing, you might possibly get to see Jupiter and the four major Jovian moons.
I'm not at all familiar with telescopes, but I know you can see satellites crossing the sky at night, so I imagine you'd be able to spot the ISS if you knew where to look. Seeing that in a telescope might be the kind of awing sight you were hoping for as an educator. Also, as a side note, I did something similar to this in middle school, our teacher arranged a night where me met at the school field at 7 and got to be guided through use of a telescope by an expert. It was a poor experience educationally. With 20 of us in the field and it being dark, distractions were constant, and fewer than 5 of us were paying attention at any given time. Only one person could view it at a time, and often the handoff would result in inadvertant bumping, so our guide had to recheck the sites after every person viewed it. It took a really long time for us to see anything (oh look, a blue blur, fascinating), and after 2 or 3 planets and an hour and a half we called it quits. This was my one experience with using a telescope, and it was totally lame. The guide frequently lamented how we should be doing it further out in the country, the street lights were ruining our visibility, meanwhile concerned parents stood bye questioning why they would bring their kids out into a dark field at night in the first place for this ineffectual attempt at science. If you really want to give the kids the real experience, keep groups small and focused on one or two objects. I would consider breaking them into different teams and assigning them each an object listed by some of the informative posts listed here (spacestation doesnt have to make the cut, IANAA), have them research some of the history of observing that object, the objects course thru space, the different meanings societies gave to some of the objects, and then let them go out and try to find it, and observe it. A big part of making this educational is helping them understand what they're looking at, and the significance of them being able to do so.
I suggest that you present to the class Roemer's deduction of the speed of light (http://www.mathpages.com/home/kmath203/kmath203.htm) and then take everyone out to view the moons of Jupiter. Jupiter is easy to find and the four big moons are easy to see. If the telescope has a clock drive this will be easy. If not, you will need to practice a bit to recover the view as the image keeps moving.
I'd try to get them to see that planets move differently than the background of stars. Mars, Jupter, Saturn and Venus can be used for this. Especially Venus because the course will take place in the spring. Even over a period of just one week visible displacement can be seen against the background (at the same time each morning or evening).
I'm not familiar with The Mote in God's Eye / The Mote in Murcheson's Eye, so I didn't mention it. I can't object to statements about things I'm not familiar with.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleiades_(star_cluster)
Ask how many stars they can see first without & then with the binocular.
Zeta Reticuli - thats where the greys come from
Examples: Sun, Moon, Mars, Jupiter, and Venus.
Google them, and they will all will have tutorials on how to view them. Cheers.
The best advice I can give is to please, please, please contact your local amateur astrononical club or society. Starting out in astronomy by yourself is hard, even without the pressure of entertaining a bunch of kids at the same time. Most astronomical societies will be more than happy to help out with volunteers, telescopes or just some training on how to use your telescope and locate some bright objects. My society has teamed up with quite a few schools in the past and it has worked out really well for both groups.
Any planet that is visible at the times you choose. Stars with distinctive colors. Anything else just looks the same.
Not only that, but I find that using those programs is really useful for planning.
What you really don't want, when showing constellations to kids, is to spend ages looking around for something interesting in the sky. A few in the class might have the patience for it, but not the rest. And if you can'tshow them the Plough, Cassiopeia and Orion quickly enough, they'll start shouting to see Uranus.
K
With a small scope, your best bet is low magnification so you get good brightness. If you can get sufficient brightness, the Pleiades are magnificent. The stars are jewel colors! The Andromeda galaxy is a pretty good target as well, as is Jupiter. Saturn is a much smaller image than Jupiter due to distance, and you won't be able to magnify it enough to see colors with a small scope. In general, try the low-number M objects. They are low numbers because they were the first to be catalogs, hence in general low-hanging fruit as it were.
Also, something amateurs often overlook is using binoculars for astronomy. The image-stabilized ones are particularly excellent for hand-held use. Once again, light-gathering power is the goal, not magnification.
- Michael
Wait one second. You are as new to the telescope as your students and you are giving them a unit on astronomy? No wonder the US education system sucks ass here. I can bet you know little to nothing about aperture let alone f-stops and the relation between the two.
You're better off taking them on a field trip to an actual observatory that knows what the hell they're talking about. At least they'll get more out of that than your sorry-ass degree in teaching.
Teachers are all alike in the US school system. Get a degree in elementary or secondary education but don't bother to learn anything else so they have something to teach. Oh that's right, I forgot. Teachers have students read text books put together by publishers because the teachers are too inept to put together a curriculum on their own put together by their own brain.
Go back to the university where you obtained your fucking degree and ask for your money back. Dumb ass.
will reveal a bunch of great stuff. Stellarium is a great open source planetarium application that'll help you to locate what you decide to observe. Check out a Messier Marathon list (http://seds.org/messier/xtra/similar/mm_plus.html), find the brightest objects, and you should be fine. The following look pretty good in a 4" scope: Double Cluster, Pleiades, Blue Snowball Nebulae, M39.
Try to avoid any light for half an hour - your eyes only become fully night adapted after 30 mins or so, and you'll see finer details after this occurs
Use dim red lights if you need to find lost children, etc
It gripped her hand gently. 'Regret is for humans,' it said.
Ninth graders? I'm sure they won't have any problems finding a heavenly body to point it at.
Never shake hands with a man you meet in a fertility clinic.
As someone who's owned a small refractor scope since the early 80's, I would put the order roughly thus:
* Moon at about 1/3 to 2/5 lit: A sure thriller and can be done a dusk
* Saturn - A bit small, but the rings are clearly noticeable most years, making it an instant classic. However, it has a "thin" tilt currently.
* Jupiter - May take practice to spot bands, but its moons are a treat
* Orion nebula - May not work well near cities
* Andromeda galaxy
* Venus if in its crescent phase
* Sun projected if there are visible spots. Bonus during partial eclipse.
* A larger globular cluster (I'd have to think to name which)
* Ring nebula - One of the better summer objects
* Pleiades - May be hard to spot nebula, but at least plenty of stars are visible
Mars usually disappoints beginners. For most nebulas, you need a dark area away from big towns. Stick with planets and moon for cities.
Table-ized A.I.
Correction: "refraction fringes" should be "diffraction fringes".
Table-ized A.I.
There are LOTS of astronomy resources for educators if you know where to find them. NASA sponsors education ambassadors for missions ( I am one), and many of these have web sites for all sorts of specialized programs and purposes.
I would suggest you look up NASA's night sky network, a network of amateur astronomers who assist schools and the public in learning about astronomy. There's almost certainly an active chapter in your area. Someone could actually come to your school and help you with your telescope and show you things you can point at with it.
http://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/
I will be happy to answer any questions you have, or find someone for you who can. Please feel free to write to me directly at astronomyteacher "at" mac.com.
Sun (with an appropriate full aperture solar filter that fits on the front of the scope securely - NEVER use a solar filter that is screwed into the eyepiece)
The moon
Jupiter
Saturn
Mars
Venus
M42 - great Orion nebula - good from binoculars, nice view in a 4" scope
M8 - Lagoon nebula - prefer use a 6" scope from dark skies and a UHC filter for best display
M13 - globular cluster - medium size fuzzy oval sized patch, need at least 6" scope to resolve stars
NGC2070 - Tarantula nebula (only really available from the southern hemisphere) - needs 6" scope or better and preferably dark skies and uhc filter
NGC 5139 - Omega Centauri - globular cluster - larger, brighter than M13. Need 6" or greater to resolve stars
M31 - Great Andromeda galaxy - 6" scope and dark skies will show the dark dust lane that runs through this magnificent galaxy
M45 - pleaides (aka seven sisters) - naked eye, binoculars and small telescopes will show this as a treat even from suburban skies
Milky way - naked eye and dark skies
Just my suggestions.
Dave
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. --Martin Luther King Jr.
If you have an old 35mm SLR with a removable standard 50mm lens, you may be able to stick the lens on the back of your telescope as a replacement for the normal eyepiece. Having the moon cover almost your entire field of vision is an experience not soon forgotten.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Get a book from your library (or interlibrary loan if yours is too small) that's suitable for your students as readers and as users of the equipment. Find something that's good enough that they could do it themselves. Then let them. Oh, you'd darn sure better be there, but if you want them to learn, let them learn to do.
BTW, everything having to do with learning to use the scope itself can be (and is best done) done inside during the day. Let them learn how first, then choose/plan what to look at, then go looking.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Secondly, get the students to each learn to use the telescope during the day when the moon is up. This will give them an understanding of how each mirror folds and bends the light in order to bring it to the eye. See if they can work out where Jupiter or Venus are located during the day (if it's not too close to the sun). Explain why telescopes need to move and what angles they need to be set at in order to continue to observe a given object.
Start with the most 'boring' objects first and work up to the moon. This will keep their attention more focused. Bring binoculars and make sure there are a variety of simulaneous activities for them to do so that they are not bored while they wait to use the telescope.
Have them build red LED flashlights so that they do not lose their nighttime/dark adaption.
If you don't already have a computer with Linux, download and burn an iso of knoppix http://www.knoppix.net./ It is completely free software and includes kstars - astronomy software which can show all the objects that you can observe with a 4" scope. Put the DVD in the computer's drive and boot it. No installation required.
One of the main questions you'll get is: Can we see Saturn (or any other object)? The answer is never simple. Depending on time of day etc, you may or may not be able to see Saturn. They need to understand why they can't see Saturn and how they can predict when they might see it next.
Never underestimate what kids take away from an experience with astronomy. They may not refer to it or bring it up again, but it will give them a profound sense of where they are in the universe. If you can open their eyes to one of the fastest advancing fields of science, you will have done a wonderful thing.
*** Don't be dull.***
If possible, take your kids out to a dark sky site. Some place where the megawatts from empty parking lots are blocked. If you have never been under a pitch-black sky, it is mind-blowing.
You could start the unit by showing them the constellations in class. Show them the big dipper, and how it points to Polaris. When you get out in the field, ask them to count the stars in the big dipper. Show them that the middle star of the handle is actually two stars, and that native americans used to test the eyesight of potential trackers that way - if they saw two stars, they had eagle vision.
I wouldn't use the telescope at all. One thing that would blow their minds is building a simple radio telescope antenna to listen to lightning on Jupiter. Just a piece of wire, basically. In class (or whenever jupiter is below the horizon), hook up the wires and amps to a speaker. Record that. When jupiter is visible, do the same thing and play back the recording. the difference is lighting on jupiter.
If you're doing this in spring, you could work in the equinox.
With astronomy, there is SO MUCH you can do, and any treatment for 9th graders will be insufficient. Just try your best. I'd probably pull a chapter from the movie Contact. "See that bright star there. That's a planet. That's another world. Because it's so bright, people long ago thought it was so beautiful. Now we know it's 900 degrees, has an atmospheric pressure equal to 1000 feet below the ocean, and rains sulfuric acid there." Maybe not the last part.
Download from http://www.stellarium.org/ ; all the software you need. Happy nights
Moon, Venus, Mars, Jupiter (plus its moons). Maybe Mercury, if you get the chance. Possibly you could get a glance at the ISS, too.
Oh, screw that if any cool comets happen to pop up, of course.
Look for star clusters (like h + chi Perseus or M13) and double stars with bright components and maybe very different colors (like eps Lyra and Albireo).
If you manage to get a bigger telescope, go for the Messier objects.
As well as the usual moon and planets, I'd go for the Pleiades, and Comets that might be around at that time, Messier 31 (Andromeda) and perhaps a binary star.
Check them out yourself before boring the kids, and also check out galaxy zoo.
**TODO** Steal someone elses sig.
I think just looking at the stars is not nearly as great as trying to find out how much you can infer from observations.
I was recently talking to an astronomy PhD working on planet finding, she said that detecting planets by looking for the wobble in the star was possible since the 1940s but noone thought to do it till recently
Uranus :-)
(hey, no Uranus joke so far? what happened?)
There are others, Google for them. Give the children the experience of using a telescope outside so they have a feeling for what is real and then show them via the Internet what a larger telescope can resolve.
The moon is fun for one viewing but what to do afterwards?
http://seds.org/messier/
how about the messier catalog, galaxys! Nebula! all visible with larger binoculars and small scopes, sure you'll get better detail with the big scopes, but you can see them and check them out with a 4"
Sorry I saw this so late.
Over 30 years ago I taught Astronomy to college freshmen. Thought I did a decent enough job, but if I had to do it over again...
First of all, please make sure that the students actually know the basics. My gut says most won't know that which way is North or South, or that the Sun rises in the east and sets in the west.
Have them watch the Moon enough to know that it moves nightly to the east, relative to the stars, and have them watch the stars enough to know that they move to the west nightly, relative to the Sun. These in and of themselves are not a trivial observations.
Have them locate planets. Mars is well placed in the evening sky. Have them learn to read a star chart to see the bright object that isn't shown. That implies they can indeed identify more that "the big dipper".
The Pleiades are high in the sky now. It starts a great lesson in star clusters and stellar nurseries.
The pretty stuff - M42 in Orion (for the early evening now) and M13 in Herc. later in the year are classics, and a good place to start.
Later in the spring, Venus is a great naked eye object, and little improved by a telescope. But at least you can show them it's a crescent. Mercury is something to look for mid-April in the evening sky. It's not improved at all with a telescope!
Saturn is the best object in a small telescope. It doesn't get high in the sky during the early evening until later in the spring, but it won't be too bad in the east. Jupiter and it's moons are in the morning sky. But late next fall it'll be your best object.
You will have a devil of a time with deep-sky objects. Because the pictures that even amateurs can get with CCD cameras are so good, the naked eye can't compete. They will either not see them or be disappointed.
A shortlist depends on the time of year.
Mars is currently up there, but unless you can manage 200x magnification, you're not going to get anything more than a orange/pink dot.
The ET cluster is ALWAYS a good one. Near the shallower point in Cassiopeia and about 1/2 a degree across, use ~40x magnification. Orion nebula is another must-have.
Saturn will be up at night soon (currently not reasonably up by 10pm) and though it's not really any bigger than mars (body is smaller, with the rings, wider), but it IS obvious what it's doing.
Andromeda is great to show how boring astronomy can be. :-) It really is a good example of what a "fuzzy" is in astronomy.
For open clusters, the Auriga tripe are nice, if nothing more.
Gallileo had a chromatic 30mm scope. 100mm has 9x the collecting power and far, FAR greater resolution.
And he managed to see the great red spot.
And yet, here you are on Slashdot. How does that work?
This book was written for owners of small scopes like yours. Inter library loan or I'll send a copy to your school from Amazon (h/t Doctorow)
You might also consider getting help from the closest astronomy club. They do this kind of thing all the time.
There's more to it than this.
Hi
I would say that you will do great if you combine the observation of planets and some large sky objects (like Orion Nebula, Magellean Clouds, Pleyades) with a planetarium software like Celestia or Starry Night (the first one its free and the second its a commercial application).
One thing to keep in mind and teach to your students its that astronomy means a lot off a patience and careful observation therefore you need to develop a discipline in the way you set the telescope, look at the sky, register your observations ans share then with the rest of your team. After all you have now more tools, knowledge and probably a telescope better than the one used the "Great" Galileo Galilei.
Remember that as important as the telescope, is the tripod/mount itself. A good polar alignment and stability can help you to outperform other larger telescopes if you do it right.
You can also end with the computer looking at your virtual sky and teach your students about the large amount of work, endurance and devotion that had make this knowledge possible.
I am sure that you will spark the imagination of your class and maybe some of your students will continue the "path to the stars".
Clear skies
-dv
There are so many ways to go. I work with an astronomy foundation www.3rf.org that teaches science teachers how to teach astronomy. We have some basic lesson plans there. If you'd like, contact the office folks for more assistance. I help local teachers with public star parties. You didn't say if your scope was computerized or not and that makes a big difference in what you can find. Even if it is computerized, I'd stick to big, bright objects at first. Students can be turned off by "dim fuzzies" even if they are special items. Of course, the Sun (with a proper filter) and Moon are very easy to find. You can use the Sun to teach some basic physics by tracing the atomic reactions. You could use the Moon to teach basic geology and talk about asteroid impacts. Jupiter and Saturn are also great objects that are easy to find. Saturn is currently "edge-on", so it's hard to see the rings, but it's still a great object. You can use Jupiter to talk about weather (Red spots & transient storms), orbits (watch the changing position of the moons over time) and history (Galileo showing the moons changed positions proved the heavens were not static). You could look at Andromeda galaxy to talk about the vast distances in space and to approximate what our galaxy looks like. The Seven Sisters are a glorious open cluster that's easy to find. There are many resources you can use to aid your efforts and many before me have listed the best sites. Good luck in your efforts!
I volunteer at the local observatory and on open houses we will look at the moon, visible planets, Andromeda galaxy and different colored stars. These are things that can be seen in a small telescope.
Get outside and practice to make sure you can see these before taking a class.
Check for a local observatory and see about getting a tour. Ours will do tours to schools for a donation.
There is free astronomy software available on the net.
Stellarium - http://www.stellarium.org/
Get it for your students. They will enjoy it.
Agree on the moon.
Also, search for the nearest astronomy club and see if they offer star parties.
Consider picking up something with blinking lights from party city to put on the mount, especially the legs. This helps prevent kids from tripping and damaging the scope.
Something that worked well when I did star parties was having a cheap plastic chair turned backwards. Kids could then brace themselves with a knee on the chair and hold onto the back so they weren't trying to grab the scope. Also helped steady them so they weren't bumping the eye piece so much.
Ask Slashdot: What Objects To Focus On For School Astronomy? on Wednesday February 10, @08:52PM
Start with English grammar.
I had a feeling it was coming soon, and sure enough there's a website up to help educators promote it: http://www.transitofvenus.org/
From the wikipedia entry on the transit of venus:
"Transits of Venus are among the rarest of predictable astronomical phenomena and currently occur in a pattern that repeats every 243 years, with pairs of transits eight years apart separated by long gaps of 121.5 years and 105.5 years."
The timing of this transit was used in 1761 and 1769 to help astronomers determine parallax, a defined astronomical unit, which helped us establish latitude and longitude as well as a rough size of the cosmos, with what we would today consider very primitive tools. This was done by securing hasty treaties with governments around the world so that astronomers could set up all around the world and record (with newly developed pocket watches) the exact timing of the transit from their particular vantage point. The event made it's way into fiction, in the brilliant Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon, which is where I first fell for its charms. Learning about this gave me an entirely new respect for astronomy, and it just so happens the timing works pretty well, as the first of the pair occured in 2006, and the next will occur in 2012. I know thats not this year, but it's one hell of a lesson on astronomy.
"Tis time to set sail,
Farewell, Portsmouth Ale,
Ta-ta to the gay can-tinas,
For we're off my Girl, to the end of the world
To be there, ere the Tran-sit of Venus.-
The Godess of love, Shining Above,
Without a bit of Meanness,
Tho' we'll have no more fun till shes' cross'd o'er the Sun,
'Tis ho, for the Transit of Venus!
Out where the trade winds blow,
Further than Sailors go,
If it's not Ice and Snow,
'Twill be hotter than Hell, we know,
So!
Wave to your Dear, stow all your gear, and
Show a bit of keanness,
Bid Molly adieu,
She isn't for you,-
For you're for the Transit of Venus!"
-Thomas Pynchon
Any Nebula you can see. The Great Nebula in Orion is real easy to find. Please do more than just pointing the scope at something and having them look. Give them a tour of the winter circle. Tell them a few stories of how some of the constellations and asterisms got their names. There's so much more to Astronomy than just using a telescope.
Have students pick objects they'd like to look at using Stellarium, or some other software, that you can see with your telescope. Get them involved or they're likely to find it pretty boring.
Lots of good suggestions and this may be a dupe.
One thing I did with my kids was to get a cash register roll of paper and a measuring tape and make a scale model of the solar system.
This could be done in the gym on a cloudy day. You could also put on the asteroid belt and the diameter of some of the largest stars.
Include the extremes of Pluto's orbit.
Gives a fair idea of the distances involved.
As for viewing, are there any nice comets visible?
I don't know if you can attach a camera to your 4", but if you could do any kind of photography with your class you have a really fun setup. I dare say, you might even be able to just point a camera at the andromeda galaxy or at orion and "stack" the images with software. Astronomy is really fun when you see things you didn't know where there. In my Comm. College Astr-1 class last semester, the things that I thought were the most interesting were:
1: heliocentric, copernicus, brahe, kepler & newton
2: The sun, the life of stars and the H-R diagram
3: Nebulae and planetary systems formation
But seriously,practically speaking, you might try putting your camera on a tripod and taking 12, 300 second photos of orion and stacking them with IRIS
http://octane2.deviantart.com/art/The-Constellation-of-Orion-43415487
Starting with this photo, looking through the 4" will be much more interesting.
Have them repeat Galileo's observations -- the elements of them have been suggested already, but I would put them in the historical framework. It would contribute to learning in other subjects and possibly give your students a better grounding in the basics of the scientific method and worldview.
I am a graduate student in astronomy and I am very active in astronomy education and outreach. There are a lot of things you can do with students with a very small set of tools. In addition to your telescope I would either bring or encourage students to bring: 1. Binoculars 2. Flashlight (red led OR take a regular flashlight and cover in several layers of red cellophane) 3. an open mind If you then bring the Astronomical Almanac and a planisphere (star chart) you can find many of the great objects in the sky. Looking at bright stars that have different colors is a great way to start talking about what's in the sky. Betelgeuse and Rigel are great for this and they are up at the right time of night in the spring. Another great binary star is Alberio in Cygnus. It is a double star that is a K spectral type and a B spectral type (orange and blue in color). You can see them through binoculars so it should not be hard to point the telescope at it. Almost all of the Messier catalog objects should be visible with a 4-inch telescope even if they are not magnificent. This may be a way of talking to students about how a telescope works and why astronomers want better cameras and bigger mirrors. If you have students learning some of the objects in the night sky and able to point to them with and without a telescope I think you will be doing well. http://www.heavens-above.com/ is a great website that will tell you about all fly overs of the space station, Hubble, and any iridium flashes. Some of these flashes are quite spectacular. While you cannot see these in the telescope they are fun. As for planets, no matter what telescope you use none of them are truly spectacular. As the aperture grows the amount of detail you "can" see will go up because you are collecting more light but the atmosphere will blur the images more as well. So it is a toss up at some level. I love looking at solar system objects just to see what I can see. The moon is fascinating and you can make good use of the night/day boundary to teach about mountains, shadows, and how Galileo proved the moon is a flawed object. But really my advice is to try it and look up with your students. Best of luck!