ASTRONOMY 10
THIRD HOUR ONLINE SESSION “I”
ONLINE: Introduction to Starry Night Software – Part I
Preliminaries: The 2nd edition Understanding our Universe, the required Astronomy 10 Online
text, comes with access to the Starry Night, College Edition software (version 7). Follow the
directions for installing the software on your computer. If you are running this again after
installing it early in the semester, it may ask you to install an update. Please do so.
Once the software is loaded, take a look at the Basic Concepts and Starry Night User Guide
under the “Help” menu item. Starry Night has a variety of features and capabilities which
obviously cannot be covered in the three Third-Hours that will be devoted to it. The questions in
these assignments use only the basics of the program. It is suggested that you: 1) Experiment
with the software to see how it works; 2) Use the Starry Night User Guide (under the Help menu
item) pages to look up items as needed; 3) Use the Online Discussions area to obtain help from
and give help to other students
When the program starts up make sure get rid of the other windows such as Sky Guide
that appears on the left and Explore Starry Night on the right by clicking on the three
buttons on the right side of the top bar
. If each of these is gray as shown (and not
white), then you should just see a panorama of Sky and ground.
Assignment: Answer all fifteen questions below based upon your use of the Starry Night
software.
Remember: To turn in your answers for grading, see “Grading Policies and Procedures” in the
Course Documents section of your Canvas site.
For all questions below, unless stated otherwise, all observations are from Sacramento (use the
“Viewing Locations…” command under the “Options” menu item and select from the list of
cities, Sacramento, California, United States) and the year is assumed to be the current year
(click on the date and time directly to change those). Also, when setting the date in Question 2,
make sure that Daylight Savings Time in on by clicking on the
icon to the immediate
left of the Month displayed on the top of the screen and confirming that Daylights Savings
is on).
1. You should have the location set to Sacramento, California as outlined above. The blue bar at
the top of the screen should have near its center Sacramento, United States. According Starry
Night, what’s the latitude of Sacramento? This can be found out by clicking on “Viewing
Locations… under the “Options” menu item and selecting Sacramento from the list of cities.
Once you do that, select the Latitude/Longitude tab and the Latitude of Sacramento should
be there. Since you should be already set at Sacramento, select Cancel and move on to
number 2.
2. For Future problems, it will be handy to have labels in the sky, so go to Labels and check
“Planets-Moons”. Find the Sun on October 27 at 12:00 PM (noon). Before changing the time,
make sure the time is not marching forward. This is done by looking at the blue bar the top
and finding
. Press the square button to stop time. Now set the clock
to Noon. What time will the Sun rise and set? Hint: After setting the time and stopping the
time, hit the S key on the keyboard. This will move the view towards the South. You should
see the Sun sparking in the sky, move your cursor to the Sun and double click. This will
bring up the “Info Box”. You should see the information you’ll need.
3. For the date in #2, set the time to 4:30 AM PDT (and if the time is marching forward, press
the square stop button on the blue bar on top of the screen so that time does not move). Click
and drag on the sky and move the sky around until you find Jupiter. What are the J2000 right
ascension and declination of Jupiter (double click on Jupiter to get the Info Box to pop up,
then in that new window, select Position in Sky)?
4. For the same date and time, what is the azimuth and the altitude of the object in question #3
(should be right next to the right ascension and declination)? Give your answer for these to
nearest whole degree.
5. For the same date and time, what is magnitude of the object in question #3? You’ll need to
select Other Data in the window you saw in Questions 3 and 4.
6. For the same date and time, right click on Jupiter and select Magnify. This will zoom in on
Jupiter. You will see Jupiter quite close up. Use the Zoom out button (-) in the lower lefthand
corner to get a wider view of Jupiter and its moons. Give the name from the “Big-4” of
Jupiter’s moons that appears closest to the disc of Jupiter.
7. Now if one wants to find an object without clicking and dragging, we can use the Find
feature. Using Ctrl-F (Cmd-F on a Mac), the Explore Starry Night window appears on the
right side. You can type in any object at the top of that window. For the same date and time
as in Question #3, now type in Saturn. After doing that there will be some Top Hits that will
relate to Saturn. The first one refers to the planet. Double click on the box just to the left of
Saturn. Since Saturn is below the Horizon, Starry Night asks you whether you’d like the Best
View of the planet or Hide the Horizon. Select Hide Horizon. Now Saturn will be centered.
Double click on it to get more info. If double clicking on the object does not give the info
box, click on the i which is on the arrow pointing at the object. Select the “Position on the
Sky” Tab. What constellation is it in?
8. For the same date and time, what is the (apparent) angular size of Saturn in arcseconds (this
can be found by selecting another Tab in the Info Box)?
9. For the same date and time, find our Moon. What is its phase? If double clicking on the
Moon does not give the info box, click on the i which is on the arrow pointing at the Moon.
10. For the same time and date, find Venus. According to the Info Box, what percentage of the
disc is illuminated for us to see?
11. For the same time and date, what constellation is Venus in?
12. Once again, for the same date and time as in #3, find the asteroid named Vesta. What
constellation is it in?
13. What asteroid number does the object in question #12 have?
14. Exactly one year later, what constellation is the object in question #12 in?
15. Find M 81. What is the common name of the object?