Modern Astronomy Lab Project
Observing the Night Sky

The purpose of this exercise is to give students the experience of directly observing the sky and its phenomena. The emphasis in this project is on observations made with the naked eye or small instruments such as binoculars.

It is up to the student to choose the topic of interest. The lab session during the week of October 21 is intended to have the student plan the project and discuss feasibility with the teaching assistant. The observations can be done any time over the next several weeks. The write-up is due the week before Thanksgiving vacation (i.e turn it in during your lab session the week of November 18).

Some possibilities for this project are given below. However, the student should feel free to come up with an alternative of particular interest. Write-ups should give a brief introductory description of the observing project, details of the date and conditions under which observations were made, a reasonably careful sketch of the observation, and comments on other facts of relevance. Finally, there should be a discussion of the significance of what was seen within the context of what has been learned in class.

• A student can learn and identify a constellation in the sky. If this is chosen, an object of interest in that constellation should be identified and discussed. One or more prominent stars in the constellation would be an acceptable choice. The student could research the spectral type and apparent magnitude of the stars, and discuss what significance his or her observations have.
• Observations can be made with binoculars or a telescope of a specific type of astronomical object. Examples would be open star clusters, globular star clusters, HII regions, etc. This category could include a more detailed repeat of the solar observing lab, but a student cannot do the solar lab for this and the IRO research project.
• Students who have gone to the Palisades-Dows observatory at Mt. Vernon can use observations there to furnish the data for #2.
• Basic astronomical observations can be made. A student could determine the latitude of Iowa City from observations of the altitude angles of stars at transit, or precisely measure the time of noon here in Iowa City and explain the difference between this and noon, Central Daylight time.

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