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Stargazing
The new page address is working now!! ==>
www.rocketmime.com/astronomy/
Stargazing
A Handbook for Night Sky Tour Guides
These are tried and proven blueprints for guiding your companions
through the mysterious depths of the night sky. Each tour follows a
plan that mixes astronomy, legends, and the immediate beauty of the
stars to create a lively and interesting stargazing experience. Whether
you are educating your campers or impressing your date, these sky tours
offer a broad selection of celestial gems that you can use.
Index to the Tours
Click on the symbol for the season to go to that tour. Click on the symbol while
you're in the tour to come back to this page.
Note that each tour stands by itself. They all cover the same fundamental
astronomy principles, each in its own way according to what's up for the season.
Summer Sky Tour
June, July, & August.
It seems nearly all the best of the deep sky objects hang out here
Ursa Major
Ursa Minor
Cassiopeia
Boötes
Canes Venatici
Corona Borealis
Virgo
Cepheus
Sagittarius
Ophiuchus
Serpens
Scorpius
Aquila
Cygnus
Sagitta
Delphinus
Equuleus
Lyra
Hercules
Draco
Autumn Sky Tour
September, October, & November.
The Andromeda legend dominates with six constellations
Andromeda
Perseus
Cassiopeia
Cepheus
Pegasus
Cetus
Capricornus
Aquarius
Pisces
Aries
Triangulum
Piscis Austrinus
Cygnus
Aquila
Little & Big Dippers
Delphinus
Sagitta
Lyra
Equuleus
Draco
Winter Sky Tour
December, January, & February.
The chilly winter sky is the brightest of the year, featuring
the Orion Nebula
Orion
Taurus
Auriga
Ursa Major
Ursa Minor
Andromeda
Perseus
Lepus
Canis Major
Canis Minor
Gemini
Leo
Cancer
Aries
Triangulum
Cetus
Cassiopeia
Cepheus
Spring Sky Tour
March, April, & May.
The Big Dipper becomes our guide to the entire night sky.
Auriga
Gemini
Canis Minor
Cancer
Hydra
Corvus
Crater
Leo
Ursa Major
Ursa Minor
Draco
Canes Venatici
Coma Berenices
Boötes
Corona Borealis
Virgo
Recommended Equipment
Reference Guides
The single best book to have is the
Audubon Society Field Guide to the Night Sky. I have over 40 books
on astronomy and I find I keep going back to this one. Plus it fits in
your back pocket.
Also handy is Orion DeepMap 600 which can be found at
www.oriontel.com.
Note that you want these for preparation in advance. If you plan on
referencing them while you're stargazing, bring along a red LED flashlight,
which will prevent you from destroying your night vision once your eyes are
dark-adapted.
Flashlight
You don't want this for seeing so much as you want it for pointing
out stars and tracing out constellations. You therefore want one with
a highly focused beam that will give you a searchlight shaft into the
night sky. (If you can afford a green laser pointer - I can't, they're
a hundred bucks - these are much cooler and more high-tech than a
flashlight.)
Binoculars
The single most versatile instrument for astronomy is a pair of
10x50 binoculars. They're small and light so they can go on any outing,
and they're powerful. In fact, a little too powerful -- at 10x magnification
you need to control the shaking from your hands to get the full resolving
power of the image. (Some people prefer 7x50 or 8x50 for this reason.)
Laying on your back, bracing the binoculars with your hands against your
face, works really well for steadying out the shaking. You can also get
a tripod mount for most binoculars.
Decent ones (Meade, Celestron, Orion, Bushnell) will go for around $50,
excellent ones will go for as much as ten times that (or more of course).
Avoid the cheap ones (think of how much you can see through those magnifying
glasses from cereal boxes).
Telescope
Only if you really think you need it. For stargazing purposes you won't
use it extensively, although it can add a nice touch. Decent ones start at
around $150, and the prices for good ones quickly skyrocket from there -- from
$400 to $1000 for a nice and reasonably mobile instrument. The diameter
of the objective lens, which is the most important dimension of a
telescope, needs to be greater than 3 inches for the telescope to do
much good.
The telescope I use is a Meade ETX (the original, with a 3.5" objective).
I have it on every campout because it's compact and travels well. For more
challenging targets (and more impressive telescope images) we rely on one of
the dads who occasionally brings along an 10-inch scope.
The tours are just fine without a telescope at all. I include the telescope
objects in case you have access to one and you really want to use it. If you
don't use it, no one will miss it. In fact, even though I usually have
binoculars handy for stargazing (and personally I really like them), I have
found that the tours are just fine with no optical aids at all. We're
stargazing, here, after all.
Planets
The planets are often conspicuous and will usually draw a question from
somebody, along the lines of "What's that bright one over there?" So...
check in advance and identify which planets are going to be up, and where
they will be.
No one will notice Mercury, so you will need to actively hunt it down and
point it out. It is a tricky one and needs to be at or near its greatest
separation from the sun. You need to catch it at the right time of twilight
-- too early and the sky is too bright to see it, too late and it's lost to
the horizon. My experience is that there is a window of about 10 to 20
minutes in which Mercury can be seen -- but it is a worthwhile pursuit.
Finding and catching Mercury can be an adventure in itself.
Mercury, Venus, and Mars make their best impression, from a stargazing point
of view, by eye -- the telescope does not add a great deal unless you are
quite serious about your astronomy. However, if Jupiter or Saturn, or both,
are visible then either will make a good showing in the telescope -- Saturn
for its rings and Jupiter for its bands and for its moons.
Hence if you expect to have Jupiter in the sky it is also worthwhile to
do a little homework and determine where the moons will be positioned. This
varies hour by hour so you need to be precise about when you will be showing
it. We once had a moon pop out of nowhere while we were watching -- Io was
emerging from behind Jupiter (very cool).
Magazines such as Astronomy or
Sky & Telescope will give you
planet positions, as well as positions of Jupiter's moons (Sky & Telescope
also shows Saturn's moons). You can also get software that will give you
this information. A good web-based Java program is available at
Sky View Cafe and an
excellent, full listing of available software can be found at
nineplanets.org.
Personally I use The Sky
astronomy software.
Pointers
The luminous beauty of the night sky has a presence that is overwhelming, and commands
the attention of your tour group. This spectacular display does all the work -- our
added value to the tour group is when we reveal to their eyes the things they otherwise
would not have seen, noticed or appreciated. So stargazing is show and tell, with emphasis
on the "show" and less on the "tell". These tours are designed to support that approach.
Some pointers:
I have found that deep sky objects that are not visible (or barely visible) to
the naked eye and pop out in the binoculars are a particular delight. A couple
of classic examples are the Coathanger in the summer sky and the Beehive in the
Winter/Spring sky. Some other similar goodies are the Double Cluster (winter),
the Double-Double (summer), M13 (summer), and the Andromeda galaxy (fall/winter).
Focus only on what is easily visible. Extremely faint and challenging objects
are best left for later, when you are testing the limits of your telescope with
the hard-core crowd. Galaxies, in particular, look spectacular in photographs
and fall well short of those images in the telescope. Aside from the Andromeda
galaxy and M81, galaxies require a crystal-clear, dark sky, or a big telescope
(8 inches or larger), and preferably both.
Attach a story to each celestial feature you point out. Answer the question of
why your friends care that they can see it.
Hit the high points quickly and early, because the night chill and fatigue of
the day will get to the crowd. Even under the best circumstances you will
gradually lose more and more of your budding astronomers as the evening wears on.
If you are going to use a telescope for any part of your tour, it's best to
have someone help by finding the next target in the telescope for you while
you are showing and explaining other items of interest.
If you are going to direct stargazing and point the telescope too,
practice finding those objects until you can do it quickly & easily.
Practice on your own, well beforehand. Optimally you will practice on several
nights under different conditions. If you're used to your light-polluted back
yard and you get out under a dark sky full of stars you hadn't been seeing before,
that can present a time-consuming challenge that will test the patience of your
tour group (not a good tour feature).
You don't need to cover everything. Most stargazing sessions I lead with Scouts
or otherwise, are spur-of-the-moment affairs prompted by the abrupt realization
that we are under a perfect, clear, dark sky. As a result, while we have covered
all the items of all these tours at one time or another, I doubt I've ever
conducted a stargazing tour where I hit every single solitary item on the list.
Rather, I follow the general flow and outline of the tours and allow the
discussion to follow the interests of the group. As you might imagine, that
seems to work out best.
Questions
Your questions and comments regarding this page are welcome.
You can e-mail Randy Culp for inquiries,
suggestions, new ideas or just to chat.
Updated 23 July 2008
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