Name ______________________________________

Astronomy 101 – Professor Jon Satko

 

Introduction to Voyager SkyGazer 3.4

 

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?

 

 

 

  1. Find the Sun on the world map.  Over what continent/country/ocean is the Sun?

 

 

 

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.

 

  1. 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.

 

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

 

 

 

  1. Give the planet’s altitude & azimuth.

 

 

 

  1. What is its angular size?

 

 

 

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

 

 

 


 

 

Now find the moon.  (If you cannot find the moon, the reason could be that the moon is currently below the horizon.  If that is the case, press CTRL-T and change to a different time of day; also, please write down the time that you switched to.)

 

  1. What is the moon’s phase (find this information in the Data Panel when you click on the moon)?

 

 

 

 

  1. Give the Moon’s altitude & azimuth.

 

 

 

  1. What is its angular size?

 

 

 

Now, if you have previously changed the time, switch it back to the current time.

Click on a star (other than the Sun) of your choice.  Read the Data Panel on that star, and answer the following questions.

 

  1. What is the name of the star?

 

 

 

 

  1. 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 one other name by which the star is known.

 

 

 

  1. In which constellation is the star?

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

I encourage you to play around with different features of the program in order to become familiar with it.