A star chart is an outline or map of the night sky on a particular season of the year. Star charts are made for different seasons, simply because the sky is not the same on all times of the year. The reason behind is that the glare of the sun affects the brightness of the night sky differently in different seasons.
Star charts are also occasionally made for different regions. You can easily guess why, observers on the different regions of earth will clearly witness a different layout of the sky above them. However, before learning more about star charts, let us see some general tips for star watching. General Tips on Star watching: Far from the downtown: If you stay within a city or town, the lights from buildings and structures may over-illuminate the sky, thus reducing the visibility of many stars.
Select your facility: It can be your backyard or your roof-top. Find a comfortable, serene place where you get a full bright view of the night sky. Many suggest a bug-spray, just in case. No full moon, please: Star watching is ideal on nights when there is no-full moon.
Most importantly, get a star chart or star chart software. See more on star charts below. Star charts and Star chart software: Where can I get them? Star charts are available in many formats.
There are weekly magazines that publish star charts of specific regions for their published time period. Another place to look at is the Internet. This is extremely useful for a star watcher. Star chart software can draw the exact sky map for a given region at the input time. It also takes care of many other factors, the moon phase, the exact latitude and longitude of the given region, the motion of the solar system through the galaxy, the glare of the sun affecting the brightness of sky, among many others.
All these complex functions are built into the star chart software to - provide the most accurate star chart custom-made for you! This way, you can plan your star watching session ideally beforehand, and mark points of interest you would like to watch every week. Moreover, such software is often free to obtain. Once you obtain a star chart, whether a generic star chart, or a printed star chart from your favourite star mapping software, you can start finding the patterns of constellations in the sky!
Once you start recognizing the constellations, you will naturally begin to learn identifying individual stars. Once again, your star chart software aids you in this greatly. What next? Now that you can identify your favourite stars and constellations on any night sky, the next step is to observe the sky for long terms. Once you become proficient at it, i.
Next steps include buying 7x50 binoculars for watching objects of lesser magnitude, later a telescope to begin with, joining an astro-club, and so on. The fascination of Astronomy is guaranteed to take you a long way. Which are of course, the sun, the moon, and earth's siblings of the solar system: the planets. Planets, though they only return the light of the sun, have lured our ancestors so much that they worshipped these shiny orbs in hope.
Scientifically, planets are objects of considerable mass that circumnavigate a star in circular or elliptical orbits. Planets of any star system, not just ours, retain a great deal of information about the birth, evolution and the aftertime of that stellar system. Our own Solar system contains eight interesting planets and a number of other objects like comets, asteroids and Cooper Belt objects.
The first four planets in the order of their proximity to the sun , namely Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars are made of mostly rock and metal. The next four in row, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are colossal aggregations of gases and liquids without a solid exterior. The former planet Pluto is a frozen mass of gas at inert temperatures. Pluto is reclassified as a minor planet or dwarf planet.
This created a controversy and some people still consider Pluto as a planet for practical purposes. Not all the planets in our solar system are visible to the naked eye. The five that are visible on evenings after sunset, though not all at the same time or throughout the year, are Venus, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, and Saturn. Venus is the closest planet to the Earth and the brightest object in sky after the Sun and Moon. Thus it is the easiest planet to gaze at.
The next planet to look at would be Mars. Often visible on the lower right of Venus, Mars is dimmer and reddish in appearance. The red colour of the planet is attributed to the presence of large amounts of oxides of Iron in its soil. Mercury is difficult to catch, and requires prior planning. While it is bright, it shows up only momentarily after the sunset, and demands patience to identify it. Jupiter, the largest of planets, is mildly brilliant and easily spotted, to the south, eastward of Venus.
With a telescope, Jupiter is a pleasure to watch, revealing many of its satellites. Saturn, the brightest object in the southeast following sunset, can easily be recognized. Like Jupiter, it requires a telescope to appreciate the charming ring-structures and satellites orbiting it.
Uranus is rarely visible as an extremely faint object in the skies, difficult to recognize from other stars adjacent to it. However it can be located through a telescope after anticipating its location in the sky. Neptune and Pluto, being exorbitantly farther from the Sun, are extremely faint for the naked eye and can be met through a telescope. Unlike star watching, which requires little prior knowledge of where the stars are located, Planet watching requires planning beforehand.
Stars stay relatively fixed in their constellations most of the time. Planet motion however, makes it difficult to expect them in certain locations. Our Earth's own motion relative to the other planets makes the picture a bit more complicated. Though difficult, Planet motion is completely predictable.
This is because we have knowledge of the orbits and time periods of all the planets orbiting the Sun, including our own. Previously, Planet watching enthusiasts required updates from astronomy magazines or hobby clubs that provided them with the information they needed. Astronomy software has made it easy for scientists and star gazing enthusiasts alike to predict the sky in their locations at any specified time. This is a must for planet watchers, since for watching planets it is essential to know beforehand where they will be.
Star mapping software can guide in the creation of a precise sky map of a particular region at a particular time thus making it possible for novices to easily identify the planets and other objects in the sky. It is in human nature to venture beyond what is just visible. Displeased with the uninhabitable nature of planets in our own solar system, scientists have begun the tradition of searching for far-off worlds lying thousands of light years away.
Planet hunters, as these specialists are fondly called, have discovered about exoplanets to date. Since the first exoplanet was discovered in , many teams of researchers have offered their part in the big picture. The most happening field in Astronomy right now could be exoplanet research. The idea of exoplanet hunting is not very new to Astronomers. Back in , American astronomer Otto Struve broke the silence by signifying the possibility of observing planetary companions of distant stars.
His idea, though accepted, could not be established until the end of the century, when technology pushed the limits of space observation. Capable of detecting the slightest variations of light from stars in other galaxies, state of the art space telescopes are now aiding astronomers in planet hunting.
A line up of new technologies that assist them in identifying and confirming the existence of exoplanets have been invented by planet hunting specialists. Scientists not only discover these exciting far-flung worlds, but also estimate their mass, chemical composition and distance from parent star through a variety of ingenious techniques.
Most of the exoplanets found till date are giant planets weighing many times the earth. It orbits a red dwarf in the centre of the Milky Way galaxy and is about light years away from us.
The most massive exoplanet known is TW Hydrae b, which is some 9. Exoplanets are generally named according to a scheme in which a small letter indicating the planet is added to the name of the star. Many exoplanets have intriguing properties. The PSRc is a good example. It orbits a stellar binary, which is a duo of a pulsar and a white dwarf. Recently discovered exoplanets have been quite motivating to astronomers as well as astro-biologists.
The question of life on these remote planets is ever enthralling. Scientists estimate that the probability of life on a planet depends not just on availability of water, but many other factors including the distance of the planet from its sun. Most exoplanets have been found to be either too close to their parent star or too distant to support life. One of the latest discoveries, the exoplanet Gliese c was found to be in a habitable zone while also hinting an unconfirmed possibility of liquid water.
Gliese c is one of the three planets orbiting a red dwarf Gliese , about 20 light years away from the sun, considered highly close in astronomical distances. Its sister planet, Gliese d is also anticipated to be life supporting while it lies on the outer edge of the habitable zone and weighs about 8 earth masses. While this is only the beginning of exoplanet research, it raises many profound questions about the place of humanity in the universe. Astro-biologists particularly are very much interested in these findings as it gives them an opportunity to view life in a fundamental manner.
Until more evidence is gathered on the presence of life in other worlds of the universe, each discovery of an exoplanet will bring with it new hope in the scientific community. In this unconstrained universe with limitless number of mysterious worlds, there could be many life- hosting planets.
Someday, we might have knowledge of all planets in our galaxy and maybe even the means to travel to them. Whether there are intelligent beings out in the corners of the universe is a difficult question to answer today.
But, there is a fundamental statement made 25 centuries ago by Greek philosopher Metrodorus of Chios: "To consider the Earth as the only populated world in infinite space is as absurd as to assert that in an entire field of millet only one grain will grow.
Being the only satellite of the Earth, the moon has a rich history since it formed about 4. While the moon is larger than Pluto, it has an average density of about three times that of water. It is a rocky world with a heterogeneous terrain consisting of mountains, volcanoes, and large craters.
Most of the surface of moon is covered with a layer of soft soil formed from pulverised rock material. The moon has no atmosphere whatsoever and all of its terrestrial features can be observed clearly from the earth with a telescope. Most features are visible to the naked eye, when observed carefully on a clear night sky when the moon is half illuminated.
One need not stress the importance of the moon to sky gazers. Moon Phases We notice the moon changing its appearance everyday in the skies. Many civilizations in the past have observed this as a calendar in the night sky. The various appearances of the moon through each month are classified as different moon phases. The moon phases are a natural phenomena caused as a consequence of the Moon's orbit around the earth. The proceeding of the moon phases is as follows: New Moon.
Waxing Crescent. First Quarter. Waxing Gibbous. Full Moon. Waning Gibbous. Last Quarter. Waning Crescent. The phases are in symmetry following the moon's shift in appearance. The new moon is seen when it is between the Sun and Earth, causing it to appear as an unlit disk. In the following days the moon starts getting brighter, showing up as a waxing crescent, a quarter, then a gibbous, and finally as full moon when it is fully illuminated.
By then, the moon is halfway through the cycle, facing both the Sun and Earth. In the proceeding period it starts waning through a gibbous, a quarter, a crescent, to finally the new moon, thus completing the cycle. This cycle through the eight phases takes about a month, and lets moon watchers observe the moon in varied amounts of lighting.
No full moon for moon watching As opposed to common sense, the best glimpse of the moon can NOT be caught on a full moon day. The moon has many features that are best observed through shadows and partial illumination.
Due to the heavy brightness on a full moon day, many of the moon's wonders such as craters cannot be spotted. It is advisable to watch out for different features of the moon throughout the different moon phases.
Starting with the first crescent, or waxing crescent, many lunar features can be observed. The mountainous features and large craters are best visible on the quarter moon phases. For smaller details, one might wait for the gibbous. On the whole, moon watching requires patience and careful observation.
Other tips The moon is the most inspiring object to watch in the night sky. Moon watching can be even more exciting if you follow the rules and plan it properly. If you're a regular star gazer, you might already have a telescope. A telescope will reveal the most intimate details of the moon. If you seriously want to study the moon in detail, the telescope is the greatest tool to aid you.
However, a telescope is not mandatory if you only want to learn about the moon's features. Being very near to the earth by astronomical distances , the moon reveals quite a lot of itself to the naked eye. A binocular is a good investment even for the beginner. Many people find the 7 x 50 binoculars comfortable for moon watching. It is easy to find at a local store and greatly enhances your moon watching experience. If you don't already have astronomy software, download it.
It is available for free. We will be able to see the position of the heavenly bodies any moment in time: in the past, present or where they will be in the future. When we choose any heavenly body with the mouse a window with its information will open, showing: the name of its star, the constellation to which it belongs, altitude, spectrum, etc. It will also show us a graph of the Moon phase. And if we want to, it will allow us to name a star after someone special.
Windows Education Astronomy Asynx Planetarium 2. Download Asynx Planetarium and view thousands of stars and planets Vote 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Lingue soft. Autore Asynx GmbH. Aggiornato Oltre un anno fa.
Ultima revisione Otre un anno. Dimensioni 3,1 MB. Ok Utilizziamo cookie propri e di terzi con fini pubblicitari, di navigazione, analisi e per i social network.
0コメント