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Frostburg State Planetarium

Frostburg State Planetarium. Presents Summer Sky Sights 2010 Sky Basics – Current Sky Sights – 3 Charts Review Questions, Choices & Answers What’s Ahead for the rest of year

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Frostburg State Planetarium

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  1. Frostburg State Planetarium Presents Summer Sky Sights 2010 Sky Basics – Current Sky Sights – 3 Charts Review Questions, Choices & Answers What’s Ahead for the rest of year Frequently asked questions

  2. Sky Basics – Key Sights & Changes • Every night star is a distant sun, so far away that their distances have shrunk them to points • Even our neighbor planets are so remote that they appear as steadily shining points among the stars • Only the sun (our star) and our moon have discs that we can see with our eyes • As moon moves about Earth, we see varying parts of its daylit half, causing the changing shapes • Earth’s spin causes sky objects to drift westward • Our motion changes evening groups each season

  3. Best Sky Sights in Summer 2010 • Venus is a brilliant, steady point in western dusk • Big Dipper’s handle arcs to bright star Arcturus • Bright Vega in E is top star of Summer Triangle • See Milky Way in lower part of Summ.Trian. • See Scorpion (like ‘J’) & Tea Kettle low in S • Bright planet Jupiter late summer in E late evening • Cassiopeia low in North resembles letter ‘W’

  4. Big Dipper, Arcturus & N. Star

  5. Vega at top of Summer Triangle

  6. Scorpion & Tea Kettle Low in S

  7. Review Sky Questions • Name 2 bright planets on evenings this summer • (Mars, Saturn) (Venus, Jupiter) (Pluto,Mercury) • Answer is Venus in West & Jupiter in East • Which 2 star groups resemble letters (‘W’ & ‘J’)? • (Big Dipper, Leo) (Cassiopeia, Scorpion) • Ans. Cassiopeia (‘W’) in N, Scorpion (‘J’) in S • In what direction do sky objects seem to drift? • N, E, S or W? Ans. Earth moves E so sky rolls W

  8. 2010 Fall Sky Sights? • As Venus disappears in W, Jupiter seen in E • Bright golden star Capella appears in NE • To right of Capella is Pleiades (7 Sisters) • Jupiter (in Pisces) high in S, late fall even. • Orion (3 star belt) in E on late fall even. • Lunar eclipse in AM hours on Dec. 21

  9. See with Eye, Binoculars, Telescope? • Darkest night (no moon), far from stores, streetlights, may see as many as 1000 stars • 5 planets during course of year can be seen • With Binoculars can see many thousands of stars all over sky, moon’s lava plains, Jupiter’s big moons, dozens of *clusters, & few galaxies beyond our own (furry) • Small telescope even more stars, moon’s craters, all 8 planets, Saturn’s rings, Jupiter’s cloud belts, phases of Venus, gas clouds, double stars & dozens of galaxies beyond our own

  10. Why are Hubble Pictures so great? • Our atmosphere is like a pond of gently moving water through which we view the universe. • Star twinkling is due to bending of thin threads of light from the stars by atmospheric turbulence. • Even large telescopes on mountain tops suffer from the atmosphere that lies above them. • Recently, new techniques used to reduce effects. • Hubble telescope is 360 miles up, no interfering atmosphere – get very sharp images easily • Digital images sent down to Earth by radio.

  11. Three types of Hubble images • Gas Clouds/Nebulae (latin for Clouds) 2 kinds 1. Shells of multicolored gases around dying * 2. Gas clouds from which new stars can form • Planet Images that nearly match the sharpness of space probe images that have flown by planets • Galaxy Images: Especially Spiral Galaxies and Colliding galaxies, images from large Earth telescopes of same galaxies lack sharpness • Other large telescopes now in space view universe in ultraviolet, infrared radiation and X-rays.

  12. More about Hubble Images • Shells of gas around dying stars ejected when star becomes unstable as its nuclear reactions wane. • These shells of gas known as planetary nebulae • Large gas clouds are seen due to light of newly forming stars, lighting them from within. • Hubble images of Mars, Jupiter, Saturn crisp • Hubble resolve stars in nearby galaxies and trace out long drawn * strands in colliding galaxies • Hubble not aimed at Mercury, Venus, Moon/Sun

  13. Frequently asked questions • What are shooting or falling stars? • These are meteors, small pieces of grit being incinerated about 50 miles up. • Aliens? (High tech extraterrestrials) • While life may exist elsewhere in space, starflight involves vast amounts of energy. What would make it worthwhile for aliens? • Is the universe infinite or finite? • Present evidence favors an infinite universe.

  14. Your questions? • Any questions can be sent through email to rdoyle@frosburg.edu . • The Cumberland Astronomy Club meets each 3rd Friday of the month at the LaVale Public Library just off Route 40, about a mile to the East of State Police Barracks. • Cumberland Astronomy Club has public telescope sessions at Frostburg’s City Park, off Armstrong Avenue in west Frostburg (see announcement of these events in Cumberland Times-News newspaper)

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