Name ______________________________________

Astronomy 101 – Professor Jon Satko

Exploring Voyager SkyGazer 3.6

In the CD (d:\) drive, open the SkyGazer folder.  Then open the colored SkyGazer icon.

When the program starts, you will notice a clock/calendar (upper left hand), a world map (upper right hand), and a view of the horizon.  If the clock/calendar is incorrect, please set it to the proper date/time now.

1. What is the date/time?

Go to the Control menu, and open up Location (or just press CTRL-L).  The default setting is probably San Francisco (notice the marker over San Francisco on the world map).  Press the List Cities button, click on Fresno, and then press Select.  Now the program will allow us to look at our local sky.

2. What are the latitude, longitude and elevation given for Fresno?

Now press OK to leave the Location Panel.

The main view shows objects that are visible in our sky.  The horizontal scroll bar will change azimuth, and the vertical scroll bar will change altitude.

Find a planet, and click on it.  Whenever you click on a celestial object, a Data Panel should appear.  The upper left hand of the Data Panel names the object.  Always be sure that it names the object you want; you may have unintentionally clicked on a nearby object.

Questions 4-7 can be answered by referring to the Data Panel.

3. What planet did you find?  What constellation is it in? 

4. Give the planet’s altitude & azimuth.

5. What is its angular size?

6. How far away is this planet (in astronomical units) from Earth?

Find Polaris on the sky map.  Now, on the Time Panel, click on the top bar  that says Start (green letters).  This will make the time go by very quickly.  (If you want to change the rate at which time advances, change the increment from “1 min” to “2 min”. 

As the night progresses, you will notice that some stars never rise or set; they just stay in the sky, circling around Polaris.  These are known as circumpolar stars.   

Click on one of those circumpolar stars.  Read the Data Panel on that star, and answer the following questions.

7. What is the name of the star?

8. You will notice that the star probably has many different names.  If it has a popular name, that will be given first.  Usually, the second name given is a Greek letter and constellation (e.g., “Alpha Cyg” is SkyGazer’s label for a Cygni; it refers to the brightest star in the constellation Cygnus.). Give the star’s Greek letter & constellation designation.  (Even though the name of the constellation is abbreviated, you can find its full name by looking in the Data Panel under “Constellation.”

9. How far away is the star?  (“ly” stands for light years; 1 parsec = 3.26 light years)

10.    In the Data Panel, click on the folder tab labeled Physical (it should, by default be set to the tab marked General).   What is the temperature of this star?  (This is actually the surface temperature.)

11.     Now click on three other stars.  List their names, what constellation their in, and their temperatures.

Click on an object (star or planet) that is close to the zenith (the spot directly overhead).  Answer the following questions regarding this object:

12.     What is its name?  What type of object is it?

13.    Since it is at the zenith, what value do you expect its altitude to approximate?

14.    Now look at the Data Panel.  What is the object’s altitude?

15.    What constellation is the object in?