Star Hops

A Begginers Tour Jishnu Bhatacharya Click to edit Master

subtitle style

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After This
Youll get to know the basics of the

observational astronomy

Youll be able to read the star charts and map

them into the night sky that you see.

You yourself will be able to point out, through

your telescopes, some of the very beautiful objects in the night sky.
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Like

Globular clusters

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Open Clusters (Lots of them )

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Nebulae

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And Even Galaxies (:-o)

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And theres more

Binary Stars Saturns rings and Titan, Jupiters moons, mars,

mercury , venus

And our own beloved MOON

And you can try some of them even Tonight !!!

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Majority of this Lecture will be based on the

star hopping techniques that u can utilize to find almost any object in the night sky, provided u have got a good practice with this. We'll illustrate this with examples.

All these things will be more useful if u try ur

hands on telescope. I'll be doing some observation after this lecture, so if any of u wants 2 join, most welcome

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So Lets Get Started

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Basics
Equipments Types of star Charts How to read a star chart

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Equipments
Binoculars :
Allow you to view large fields in the sky.

Easy to carry, easy to use.

Magnification is very low.

But when it comes to look deeper into the night sky, u need a better equipment.
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Telescopes
Much larger light gathering power. Larger Magnification. But the field of view that we see is much less. (Scale on blackboard)

So, while magnification increases, the field of view decreases and makes it difficult to locate the objects. What is the way then ?
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Here comes the view- finder to rescue. Aligned with the main telescope is another

telescope with larger field of view (and therefore lower magnification ).

Its like binding the binoculars with the

telescope together.
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Types of star charts

A good sky chart is a must Sky charts give the locations of objects and

stars on the 2-d Sheet of paper, just like the maps of earth give the location of various countries and cities.

Alongwith that, the magnitudes, coordinates

etc are also given. (why its better to start with a star chart ) 4/28/12

Types of Star Charts

Uranometria Oxford Deep Sky Charts Pocket Sky Atlas + U can use softwares like Stellarium etc.

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How to Read a star chart

1. Beginners Star Chart (Activity 1) :
Turn the map such that the north in the map is

towards the north direction, now all the directions on the map should be the same as that on earth.

Now identify some major constellation in the sky

and locate it on the map, now using that as a starting point try to figure out all the other constellations in the sky.
Now proceed on to objects and try spotting them
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with your binocular or telescope.

2. Oxford Start Charts (That we mostly use in

our club)

Once you know the basic star patterns in the

night sky (from Activity 1), you can use the oxford star charts that have been provided to you.
Lets first get familiarized with the star chart that

we have. (Activity 2 ) [Video followed by Activity]

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Now that we are Equipped with all sort of

tools, we can start our star hops.

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Star Hops
What is a star Hop ?
Example : When we came here for the first time

All of us had to find our hostels. Stop at a few landmarks and asked for the way, like SAC crossing -> Hall 2 -> Hall 5.

Star Hop is a similar way of finding difficult

objects in the night sky by jumping from one landmark to another.

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What are the landmarks ?

Bright stars Star patterns Constellations On a low field of view scale : Group of stars, or

even some minor star can become a landmark

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Example 1
Almost all of us must be knowing this, Find

Moon in chart No 1

Jupiter? Altair, Vega, Deneb? Pole Star

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Example 2 (A bit tougher)

Video Explain Another method with chi star.

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Activity 4
Find :
M31 in Andromeda Pleaides > California Neb Capella > Perseus > M76 Cassiopea > Cassiopea > M103

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Some Points :

Identifying the bright stars and star patterns. Confusing directions ... everything is opposite.

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So, the essence is :

Its easy But all you need is some creativity.

You Can Find Your Own

Star Hops Too !!!!!

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Thanx
Well be doing observation tonight, so if any

of u wants to join, most welcome.

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