Observing the Night Sky

1. Go to http://www.oocities.org/lewiston_stargazer/index.html. Click “The Night Sky”.

2. Choose “Silicon Mapping”. Enter the street address where you will be doing your night sky observations and record the latitude and longitude.

3. Choose “CalSky”.
a) At the bottom right of the page, find “Free login to your personalized CalSKY:” and enter a user name and password and then click “LOAD”. Write this down some place so you don’t forget it.
b) Click “Calendar” under the title graphic and then “Astro-Calendar · User Profile” on the next page.
c) Under “1. Position” and “Select Mean of Input”, choose “Enter Coordinates” and enter your latitude and longitude (ours is negative for “west”).
d) The time (2.) should be set at EST. Set your experience level in 3. as “Hobby astronomer (hobby)”.
e) At the bottom press the button after “You must press this button to accept your inputs: “
f) Go back to “Calendar” and make a customized calendar (pick things you’d like to learn about) for tonight at 8PM or 20:00 EST. Use military time formats.

4. Choose “Your Sky”.
a) Enter your latitude and longitude and then hit “Make Sky Map”.
b) Now you can change the controls in the panel to customize your map and set it for the correct observation times. Right now we are 5 hours beyond Universal Time (see the clock on the Night Sky page). Therefore you must set the time 5 hours after when you want to observe - this may take you into the next calendar day!!
c) Make horizon maps for the planets that will be visible tonight at 8PM by clicking on the name of the planet and then updating the time on the chart that comes up.
d) Make other horizon maps of N, E, S and W (remember to update the time).

Questions:
1. What is the Universal Time equivalent of March 15, 8:00PM?
2. What time did the sunrise today - when will it set?
3. What is the phase of the moon tonight?
4. Describe some objects of interest you will be able to see tonight, note times and plot them on your star maps or jot down what constellations or part of the sky they will be in.
5. What planets can you see tonight at 8:00PM. In what constellations and at what azimuth will you find them?
6. What constellations will you see in the northern, eastern, southern and western skies?