Winter Tour of Bright Objects
This is a plan for a star party with some constraints:
- Bright lighting (expected to be used at school events, on school grounds with property lights on)
- Young observers (school audiences)
- January 2006 (winter objects)
- Early evening (twilight ends between 6:00 and 6:30. The bright planets in the evening sky are Mars and Saturn.
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 mostly also visible to the kids' naked eyes
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
- Saturn (rings visible)
- Mars (only an orange disk)
Nebulas
Galaxies
Open clusters
- Pleiades
- Hyades
- M35
- Beehive
- Double Cluster
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
I haven't come up with any that are bright and easy for kids to appreciate
Colored Stars
- Betelgeuse (red giant)
- Rigel (blue giant star)
- La Superba, Y Canum Venaticorum (red carbon star) (above the horizon, but may be obstructed and in skyglow)
Double Stars
- Trapezium, 6 stars
- Castor, 6 stars
- Mizar and Alcor
- Rigel, beta Orionis
- iota Cassiopeiae
- lambda Orionis
- sigma Orionis, 5 bodies, A and B are red and blue
- alpha Leporis
- gamma Andromedae, triple
- Polaris
- Cor Corelli
Constallations
- Orion
- Big Dipper
- Cassiopeia
- Taurus
- Andromeda
- Canes Venatici (above the horizon, but may be obstructed and in skyglow)
- Cassiopeia
- Lepus
- Gemini
Plan in target order
Andromeda
story of Andromeda and Perseus
Andromeda Galaxy
gamma Andromedae
Canes Venatici
story of King Charles and the hunting dogs
Marginally visible from most places in evening. Above the horizon, but may be obstructed and in skyglow.
La Superba
Y Canum Venaticorum, red carbon star. 12h 45m 24.2s +45d 24' 49"
Cor Corelli
alpha Canum Venaticorum, double star
Cassiopeia
belongs to story of Andromeda and Perseus
iota Cassiopeiae
double star
Aries
Mars
planet (only an orange disk)
Big Dipper
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)
Taurus
Pleiades
cluster. Iroquois story of the creation of the Pleiades.
Hyades
cluster
Orion
Betelgeuse
red giant star
Rigel
blue giant star, double star
Trapezium
multiple stars, illuminating the Orion Nebula
lambda Orionis
double star
sigma Orionis
5-star system, A and B are red and blue
Orion Nebula
Canis Minor
Procyon
double star, A is a main sequence star, B is a white dwarf (probably hard to see)
Lepus
alpha Leporis
double star
Gemini
M35
open cluster
Castor
6 star system
Cancer
Saturn
ringed planet
Beehive Cluster
Perseus
belongs to story of Andromeda and Perseus
Double Cluster
Story of a Star Life
- Orion Nebula
- Birthplace of stars.
- Procyon
- A main sequence star.
- Saturn
- Example of planet formation. Rings are common.
- gamma Andromedae
- Many stars are found in pairs. This is a triple star.
- Cappella
- This is a multiple star system.
- Pleiades
- Stars often cluster close together.
- globular cluster
- A larger grouping of stars. I haven't found a good one for kids.
- Andromeda Galaxy
- An even larger grouping of stars. Galaxies are important structures in the larger universe.
- Rigel
- A blue giant. A large star may become this instead of a main sequence star.
- Betelgeuse
- A red giant. A main sequence star in old age may become this.
- planetary nebula
- An older star sheds its outer layer to make a nebula. I haven't found a good one for kids
- Procyon B
- 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.