Andrew Stephens
Mr. Hamed Pour-Imani
ASTR 2001L
4 August 2016
Night Lab Report
On July 15 our astronomy lab met on the roof of Kimpel Hall to observe several objects in our night’s sky. Using a 10-inch diameter telescope we were lucky enough to have a mostly clear sky to view in this order: Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and the Moon. Viewing these celestial bodies in person is truly one of the most exciting and core tenets of astronomy. With our telescope we were able to see firsthand and notice some of the distinct characteristics of the different objects. First we looked at our nearby neighbor planet, Mars. Mars is named after the Roman god of war and has a nickname of the “Red Planet” due to its reddish appearance. We know that it …show more content…
One of the concepts discussed in class that was very apparent when observing Saturn was that of atmospheric distortion. The principle is that moving or variable-temperature air in our atmosphere between our telescope and the object distorts the image that we see. The easiest example is to say this is why stars appear to “twinkle” or “sparkle”. The solution to getting a clearer image and combating this atmospheric distortion is either to place the telescope in space, or more recently they have designed telescope systems that measure the atmosphere and automatically correct mirrors within the telescope to provide a clear image. Since our telescope did not have this advantage when I viewed Saturn it was dancing about in the optics. Regardless Saturn’s most notable feature, its series of rings surrounding it, was clearly visible. Saturn is a gas giant just like Jupiter and even though many gas giants have rings Saturn’s is much larger and thus more visible. These rings are made of mostly ice with small traces of different dusts. The planet itself is very similar to Jupiter in composition being mostly hydrogen with much small amounts of helium and a metallic core. Also similar to Jupiter it has many moons 62 known and 53 of which have been
Mr. Hamed Pour-Imani
ASTR 2001L
4 August 2016
Night Lab Report
On July 15 our astronomy lab met on the roof of Kimpel Hall to observe several objects in our night’s sky. Using a 10-inch diameter telescope we were lucky enough to have a mostly clear sky to view in this order: Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and the Moon. Viewing these celestial bodies in person is truly one of the most exciting and core tenets of astronomy. With our telescope we were able to see firsthand and notice some of the distinct characteristics of the different objects. First we looked at our nearby neighbor planet, Mars. Mars is named after the Roman god of war and has a nickname of the “Red Planet” due to its reddish appearance. We know that it …show more content…
One of the concepts discussed in class that was very apparent when observing Saturn was that of atmospheric distortion. The principle is that moving or variable-temperature air in our atmosphere between our telescope and the object distorts the image that we see. The easiest example is to say this is why stars appear to “twinkle” or “sparkle”. The solution to getting a clearer image and combating this atmospheric distortion is either to place the telescope in space, or more recently they have designed telescope systems that measure the atmosphere and automatically correct mirrors within the telescope to provide a clear image. Since our telescope did not have this advantage when I viewed Saturn it was dancing about in the optics. Regardless Saturn’s most notable feature, its series of rings surrounding it, was clearly visible. Saturn is a gas giant just like Jupiter and even though many gas giants have rings Saturn’s is much larger and thus more visible. These rings are made of mostly ice with small traces of different dusts. The planet itself is very similar to Jupiter in composition being mostly hydrogen with much small amounts of helium and a metallic core. Also similar to Jupiter it has many moons 62 known and 53 of which have been