Baker Lab 3- Trey Riley and Megan Purgahn

Trey Riley and Megan Purgahn

April 20, 2016

Baker Observatory Lab Experiment 3

Dr. Plavchan

Introduction - The goal of our experiment at Baker Observatory was to observe several different astronomical objects, ranging from stars to globular clusters, to galaxies.

Procedure - Telescope set-up and alignment was to be done first. We assembled our telescope after searching for various pieces to complete the telescope. We did not align our telescope. We had to find our objects (inset what they were for our objects) by hand, which was tedious and trying do to the high magnification of the eyepiece and telescope used. Once assembled, with our objects in sight, we observed and noted different aspects of what we could see. In our previous lab we observed Jupiter, but for this night we observed the moon and attempted to observe Orion’s Belt.

Results/Discussion

(since we only observed certain objects and have performed this lab once before, we were limited on the number of questions we were able to answer)

8.) Answer the following questions:

1. Draw what you see. If the object is bright enough, take a picture with you phone up against the eyepiece, and include that in your report. If you hand is steady, and the telescope tracking is good, you can use a custom smartphone app to take a longer exposure of fainter objects. Make sure the flash is off. 

   Here are the pictures we were able to get from that night:

B. Make notes about the distinguishing characteristics and properties of what you are looking at.

Characteristics: The moon was very bright and clear this night. We were able to distinguish some of the maria and craters. We also observed Orion’s belt and Orion’s nebula which, from our view from the telescope, looked like 3 very bright stars, each with a glow around them.

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D. If your object was the Moon, what craters, maria, and other features can you identify?

From what we could observe, and by comparing our images to maps of the moon, we were able to identify the craters of Tycho, the Copernicus crater, Mare Nubium, Mare Humorum, and Mare Nectaris.

E.How bright is your object? What would you estimate the magnification is your eyepiece?

We were asked how bright our object was. When we observed the moon it was by far the brightest object in the sky. Orion’s nebula was pretty faint, but it was the brightest object in its area.

F. Can you see more stars than you can see with your eye? Particularly with the Milky Way? Why is that?

When we use the telescope we are able to see way more stars than just with our naked eye because the telescope magnifies a certain area of the sky so that it is easier to see all the stars that appear much smaller.

G. If you are looking at a star, a cluster of stars, or a binary star, why cant we see the surface of the stars?

When we were observing Orion’s Belt we could not see the surface of the stars because they give off so much light and are so far away that it is hard to see any “surface” of the stars.

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I.  If your object is changing in brightness, why is that?

When looking at Orion’s Belt with our bare eye the stars seemed to change in brightness and twinkle due to Earth’s atmosphere.

Conclusion: During this lab we became more comfortable with setting up and using our telescope. We were able to locate and identify objects in the sky more easily. On this night we had the opportunity to observe the moon and Orion’s Belt which were both fairly easy to observe. We will be able to use the skills from this lab in future to identify other objects in the sky and point out certain characteristics of the objects.