Astronomy 110: Starry Night Assignment -- What's Up in April

To begin to learn the spring night sky, you will explore what planets, constellations, and bright stars are visible in the early evening skies of April. You will do this by using the desktop planetarium program Starry Night, which is included on your textbook CD. This program will give you a sneak preview of what to look for in the night sky later this semester, when you go to the roof of Olin Observatory.

Please note: Try out Starry Night as soon as possible. If you cannot get it to work on your home computer, contact me immediately (and not the night before the assignment is due). We have copies of the program on some of the computers in the Physics Department, and I may be able to arrange for you to use one of them.

This assignment is due by 5 PM on Thursday, February 12, and should be dropped off in the box outside my office (308 Olin). Grades will be docked by 5% for each day late.

Getting started: Setting up Starry Night

Packaged with your textbook is a CD entitled, "Universe 6.0 (with Starry Night Astronomy Software)." Insert this into your computer's CD-ROM drive, and access the CD. To install Starry Night on your computer's hard drive (assuming you haven't done this already), double-click on the "StarryNight_Setup.exe" icon and follow the instructions. Alternatively, to simply run Starry Night off of the CD, open the "StarryNight" folder and double-click "starrynight.exe".

When you start Starry Night for the very first time, it will ask you for two things: your Home Location, and a registration number.

• In the Home Location window that first comes up, enter the latitude, longitude, and time zone for New London, CT. For latitude, enter 41 degrees N; for longitude, enter 72 degrees W (note that E is the default, so you must type the direction explicitly); for time zone, enter -5. Then click "Set Home Location."
• When a second window ("Welcome to Starry Night Backyard") comes up that asks for your name and registration number, click the "Get Registration Number..." button. You must have an internet connection for this process to work correctly. You will be taken to the Starry Night website and given a name and number (write them down for future reference). Enter the name and registration number exactly as given into the second window, click "OK," and you're ready to roll.

Now, follow these instructions to set up Starry Night for this assignment.

1. When the Starry Night window appears, you should see a bar across the top with various bits of information. On the left, it should give your location as "Lat 41 N - Long 72 W". If it doesn't say that, correct it by clicking on the incorrect piece of information and typing the correction.
2. In the middle of the bar is the time. Note that there is a little circle (like a sun) to the left of the time. If this circle is unfilled, the time is Eastern Standard Time; if it is filled (yellow), it is Eastern Daylight Time. You switch back and forth between the two by clicking on the circle. Since we do not want daylight savings time for this exercise, make sure that the circle is unfilled. For the time, enter 8:00:00 PM.
3. Next comes the date, which you should set to April 1, 2004.
4. To the right of the date are little buttons that look like CD controls. These regulate the flow of time. Click the square (the "stop" button) to freeze time at 8 PM on April 1, 2004. (Otherwise, time will continue to advance while you use the program, which we don't want here.)
5. Finally, on the extreme right of the bar, you will see a number of degrees. This is the angular size of the screen's width. It should say either 99 or 100 degrees -- if it doesn't, click on the button just to the left of the screen-width number (a boxed square).
6. Now you need to select various features in the pull-down menus above the bar. Pull down the "Sky" menu, and click on Small City Light Pollution. This will make some of the fainter stars disappear from the sky, simulating the effects of light pollution in New London. Also make sure that the following items in the "Sky" menu have a checkmark next to them: Daylight, Planets/Sun, Stars (other items may have checkmarks as well). If any of these items do not have checkmarks, click on them.
7. Pull down the "Labels" menu, and click on Planets/Sun and Stars. This will label any planets in the sky, and some of the brighter stars.
8. In the "Constellations" menu, click on Boundaries and Labels. You will see the blocky constellation regions appear with their names. Also click on Astronomical to turn on the connect-the-dot constellation figures within each region.
9. In the "Guides" menu, click on Zenith/Nadir and Celestial Poles to label these points in the sky. (Feet will already be selected, which is fine.)
10. Finally, pull down the "Windows" menu, and click on Scrollbars (they should appear on the sides of the window).

Some pointers on using Starry Night for this assignment

The screen only shows you part of the sky at any one time (a section roughly 100 degrees wide and 60 degrees high). To change the direction in which you are looking, use the horizontal scrollbar or the left and right arrow keys. Direction indicators on the horizon show you which way you are facing. To change how high up you are looking, use the vertical scrollbar or the up and down arrow keys. (You can't look higher than the zenith [overhead], or lower than the horizon.)

To find a specific object, pull down the "Edit" menu and click Find (or hit Control-F). Enter the name of the object and hit Return (but SEE IMPORTANT NOTES BELOW), and if the object is visible (above your horizon) at that time, the program will swing your view around and center you on it.

• NOTE: The first time you use the Find feature, TURN OFF the option "Magnify for best viewing of found objects." This feature (which automatically zooms in on small objects) is not desirable for this assignment!
• NOTE: If the object you want is not currently visible, you will get a box that says "BLAH is below the current horizon...." When this happens, DO NOT hit Return or click the "Reset Time" button! If you do, the time will change, and will no longer be 8 PM. Hit the "Cancel" button instead.

To determine an object's direction, first center the object on the screen. Then draw a line from the object directly down to the horizon, and use the direction indicators on the horizon. If the object is high enough in the sky that you can't see the horizon in your field of view, use the down arrow (or the vertical scrollbar) to pan downwards until the horizon comes into view.

To determine an object's altitude -- the angle between the object and the horizon -- move your mouse so that the cursor (a hand) is directly over the object. When you successfully do this, the hand will become an arrow. You have to put the cursor EXACTLY on the object to get this to happen! Now double-click on the object, and a new window will appear. (If the object is a star, the text in this window will say "Information for the star '(name)'," and will continue with info like the HIP number, the TYC number, and so on. If the object is a planet, the window's text will start with "View of '(name)' from your current position.") One of the pieces of information in this window will be the object's altitude, which will be an angle between 0 and 90 degrees (and expressed in degrees and arcminutes, e.g.: 27^o 56.809' ).

More information on how to use Starry Night (including all sorts of extremely neat features that you will not need for this assignment) can be found in the manual, which can be read by pulling down the "Help" menu. If you experiment with Starry Night, be sure to redo the numbered steps listed above in "Getting started: Setting up Starry Night" before attempting the assignment.

The assignment

Be sure that Starry Night is set for New London, at 8 PM Eastern Standard Time, April 1, 2004. Then do the following:

• Planets: There are five planets bright enough to be seen without a telescope: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Which of these objects can be seen at 8 PM EST on April 1, 2004? For these planets, make a chart with the following information:
  • the constellation in which the planet is found (use the blocky borders of the constellation regions to decide this)
  • the direction you must face to see the planet
  • the altitude of the planet (round this to the nearest 10 degrees)
• Constellations with bright stars: Some of the brighter stars (drawn as larger dots) will be labeled with their proper names. Find ten constellations that contain some of these labeled stars. They should not all be in one part of the sky (i.e.: scroll around to face different directions and/or look higher or lower). Choose constellations whose stick-figures are completely above the horizon. For each constellation:
  • Give the name of the constellation.
  • Draw a sketch of how the constellation stick-figure looks at 8 PM on April 1. Be sure to include both the stars (i.e.: the dots) and the imaginary connecting lines. Indicate which stars look brighter by drawing them as larger dots (as Starry Night does). Label the brighter stars with their names, as given by the computer program (but SEE NOTE BELOW). You do not need to draw the blocky boundaries of the constellation region.
  • State the direction you must face to see this constellation at 8 PM on April 1.
  • State the approximate altitude of the constellation at 8 PM on April 1. Do this by determining the altitude of a star that is centrally located within the constellation. Again, round the given altitude to the nearest 10 degrees.

NOTE: As you look in different directions, you will see that the names of some of the bright stars turn on and off. Thus, when you are centered on the constellation Orion, there may be three stars labeled, but as you scroll left or right (or up or down), some stars may suddenly lose their labels, and other stars may suddenly become labeled! This is, I admit, an extremely annoying feature of Starry Night, and one that I am at a loss to explain. For your constellation sketches, just label whatever stars happen to be labeled on the screen at the time that you make your sketch, and don't worry if you notice other stars being labeled later on.

Last edited: 1 Feb 2004 - M. A. Weinstein