Fall Tour of Bright Objects
This is a plan for a star party with some constraints:
- Young observers (Scout audience, could be used later for school audiences)
- late October 2006 (fall objects)
- Early evening (twilight ends between 7:00 and 7:30.
I expect to use this on evenings when the Moon does not rise till later.
On nights when the Moon is up you could add that; it's a good target for kids.
Because the other targets in this plan are bright, they should work acceptably in moonlight.)
It features:
Bright objects, easy to find and many also visible to the naked eye
Examples of the major categories of sky objects
Fun, large, colorful objects that kids tend to appreciate more than small faint fuzzies
Plan by type of object
Planets
Nebulas
- Pleiades Nebula once it rises
- Orion Nebula rises late
Galaxies
Open clusters
- Double Cluster
- Pleiades
- Hyades
- M35
- Beehive
Globular clusters
I haven't come up with any that are bright and easy for kids to appreciate.
M79 is easy to find, but all globulars look like small faint fuzzies to kids.
Planetary Nebulas
Little Dumbbell Nebula. This is the brightest candidate, but may be too dim to see under high light conditions.
Colored Stars
- Mu Cephei (Herschel's Garnet Star)
- Deneb (blue giant)
Double Stars
- Mizar and Alcor
- Albiereo
- iota Cassiopeiae
- lambda Orionis
- sigma Orionis, 5 bodies, A and B are red and blue
- alpha Leporis
- gamma Andromedae, triple
- Polaris
- Cor Corelli
Constallations
- Big Dipper
- The Andromeda story:
- Cassiopeia
- Cephus
- Andromeda
- Pegasus
- Perseus
- Cetus
Comets
Plan in target order
Andromeda - Andromeda Galaxy
Milky Way
Perseus - double cluster
Taurus - Pleiades
Orion (rises 10 - 11 pm)
Comet Swan
Probably behind the trees
Ursa Major
story of creation of constellations, Rotating Man and Woman
Mizar and Alcor
Most likely an optical double, though uncertainty in the
measurements is an interesting science lesson. Mizar is a
4-star system.
Ursa Minor
Polaris
double star (now known to be a triple, the third member only recently seen for the first time)
Wedding Ring asterism
Cygnus
Deneb
Blue giant
Albiereo
Colored double
Aquarius
Uranus
near Lambda Aquarius
Cephus
mu Cephei
Herschel's Garnet Star
Andromeda
story of Andromeda and Perseus
Andromeda Galaxy
gamma Andromedae
Milky Way
trace across the sky
our own galaxy
Cassiopeia
belongs to story of Andromeda and Perseus
iota Cassiopeiae
double star
Perseus
belongs to story of Andromeda and Perseus
Double Cluster
Little Dumbbell Nebula
Pegasus
belongs to story of Andromeda and Perseus
Pisces
Wolf 28 ( van Maanen's star)
Easiest white dwarf to find. PSC 00 49.2 +05.4
2 degrees S of delta Pisce
Cetus
belongs to story of Andromeda and Perseus
Taurus
Pleiades
cluster. Iroquois story of the creation of the Pleiades.
Hyades
cluster
Story of a Star Life
- Merope Nebula in Pleades
- Birthplace of stars.
- Sun
- A main sequence star.
- Uranus
- Example of planet formation. Rings are common.
- Albiereo
- Many stars are found in pairs.
- Pleiades
- Stars often cluster close together.
- Andromeda Galaxy
- An even larger grouping of stars. Galaxies are important structures in the larger universe.
- Deneb, Polaris
- A blue giant. A large star may become this instead of a main sequence star.
- Antares, Aldebaran
- A red giant. A main sequence star in old age may become this.
- Ring Nebula
- A planetary nebula. An older star sheds its outer layer to make a nebula. This is the brightest fall candidate, but may be too dim to see.
- DM Lyrae, Wolf 28 ( van Maanen's star), ZZ Ceti
- A white dwarf is the core remnant after a giant loses mass. We probably won't be able to distinguish the dwarf
- Crab Nebula
- A supernova is another end of star life. The sky will probably be too bright to see the nebula.