PHYS 1403 Lab 2: THE CELESTIAL SPHERE I

Worksheet

Name: Skylar Meehan

CWID: 200006502

OBJECTIVES
This two-part exercise teaches you some important facts about the celestial
sphere and the meaning of the terms right ascension, declination, altitude and azimuth.
By exploring the Stellarium software, you will see what these terms mean. You will learn
how to identify the location of various stars and planets. Additionally, you will also learn
about the causes for the different seasons and how your location on earth determines
the seasonal changes. Please see the link on the course page in Canvas to download
Stellarium to your computer.

EQUIPMENT
“Stellarium” software

INTRODUCTION
The stars are stationary in the sky, at least by the time scale of human lives. The
apparent movement of the stars across the sky that we see every night is due to the
rotation of the earth on its axis. Because of this, the stars, the Sun and the Moon all
appear to travel across the sky in circles, when actually we are the ones that are moving
while we stand on the Earth’s surface. However, it becomes obvious that the simplest
conclusion for the ancients to reach was that the stars were moving and that the Earth
was standing still. Some early cultures believed the stars were fixed on a giant sphere in
the sky to keep them from falling to the Earth and this sphere was rotating about the
Earth. This giant sphere was called the celestial sphere. Today, we still use the idea of
the celestial sphere to locate objects in the sky with great precision. We do this with a
coordinate system that is nearly identical to the geographic coordinates (latitude and
longitude) we are familiar with.

In order to use a coordinate system, we must have reference points, places to

start counting from. On our celestial sphere, our reference marks are:

1) The Celestial Equator. This is a line in the sky directly above the Earth’s
equator. If you were standing on the Earth’s equator, the celestial equator would make
an imaginary line in the sky connecting the eastern and western points of the horizon
and passing through a point in the sky directly above you. This point directly above you
is called the zenith.

1
 2) The North and South Celestial Poles. These are points in the sky directly
above the Earth’s north and south poles, respectively. If you were standing on one of
the Earth’s poles, the corresponding celestial pole would be at the zenith.

3) The Vernal Equinox. The vernal equinox is the point in the sky where the Sun
is located when it is directly above the Earth’s equator. Since this occurs twice a year,
once in the spring and once in the fall, we must specify which of the two points we are
referring to. The vernal equinox is the point when the Sun is moving from the southern
hemisphere into the northern hemisphere along its annual path on the celestial sphere.
This apparent path of the Sun is known as the ecliptic.

Equipped with these reference points we can explore the coordinate system.
First comes declination (DEC), which is measured in degrees. Declination gives us the
number of degrees that an object is located above or below the celestial equator.
Declination is zero for objects located on the celestial equator and gets larger in
magnitude the farther away from the celestial equator is located. The maximum
declination is 90o, for objects located at a celestial pole. If it is in the southern
hemisphere declination is measured in negative degrees, while it is positive for objects
in the northern hemisphere. So, -90o DEC means it is at the south celestial pole.

Declination only provides us with a circle that is either north or south of the
celestial equator. It doesn’t tell us where on that circle the object is located (with the
exceptions of the celestial poles, which are points, not circles). In order for us to locate
an object, we need to know its location not only to the north and south, but to the east
and west, as well. This location is provided with right ascension (RA), which is
measured in hours, minutes and seconds. Declination had a convenient starting point,
the celestial equator, but where do we start right ascension? The answer is the vernal
equinox, that point where the Sun appears to be directly over the equator while moving
from the south to north. This point is zero hours RA. There are twenty-four hours of RA,
each of which is broken down into 60 minutes. Each minute is then broken down into 60
seconds, yielding 3600 seconds in each hour of RA. Because there are 360o around a
circle, each hour of RA encompasses 15o of the sky. RA increases to the east from the
vernal equinox, until it comes around to 24h RA, or 0h RA again. This point use to be in
the constellation Pisces, but is now entering the constellation Aquarius, due to a slow
movement of the Earth’s axis called precession.

It is important to understand that these coordinates are located in the sky.

Therefore, with the exception of the celestial poles, they are not located over any one
particular point on the face of the Earth. Instead, the Earth rotates beneath them and
these coordinates rotate with the stars. Thus the declination and right ascension of an
object in the sky as measured by one observer in one country, will be the same as
measured by another observer in another country.

At first the night sky appears to be constant, but it isn't. There are small changes

2
that are taking place every hour. Stars are seen to rise above the horizon and set just
like the Sun and the Moon. From a local perspective, it is useful to know how high a star
is, above the horizon. This number is called the star’s altitude. A few hours later, the
position of the star will be noticeably different, and its altitude will also be different.
While it is very easy to measure altitude, it is not as useful as declination for
professional astronomers, because the altitude of a star will change depending on the
observer’s location, day and time of observation.

To be able to measure the altitude of a star, you must first look in the proper
direction! This means you must turn to face the star. The angle through which you turn,
starting from north, is called azimuth. If you are facing due north, the azimuth angle is
0° if you face east, the azimuth is 90°. Facing south gives an azimuth of 180° and facing
west is 270°. Like altitude, the azimuth depends on the observer’s location, date and
time.

3
PROCEDURE
Enter you answers to each question in the data tables and boxes below. When
completed, please upload this file to Canvas using the designated submission link on
the assignment page.

A. PRELAB QUESTIONS

1. What is the unit of measure of Right Ascension? of Declination?

Right Ascension is Minutes, Declination is degrees

2. How much does the declination of the Sun vary over one year?

About 46 degrees

3. If you find two stars with the same Right Ascension, are they necessarily close
together in the sky? Why or why not?

If you use just the Right accention they may not be close together due to the declanation not being

B. EXERCISE
In this exercise you will be using Stellarium in order to familiarize yourself with
the celestial sphere. Once you have installed the program, find Stellarium in the “Start”
menu at the bottom of your computer desktop. After the program has started, you will
need to set your home location. If you move your cursor to the lower part of the left side
of the screen, a vertical menu of icons should appear. Click the top icon called “Location
window”. Choose “Plano, United States” from the list of cities given, and then click the
“Use as Default” box in the bottom left of the window. Now that you have set your
location (and closed the Location window), you will see a scene representative of the
sky conditions outside. If it is still daylight outside, you will see daylight on your
computer screen; and if it is night outside, you will see night on your computer screen.
Since we are interested in things other than the sun in this lab, we need to get rid of the
daylight. Move your cursor to the left side of your screen to bring up the vertical menu
again, and click the “Sky and viewing options window” icon. In the “Sky” tab within this
window, un-check the box that says “Show atmosphere”. Daylight should fade and stars
should now be visible (although the sun may still be displayed in the sky). You can
move around by simply clicking on the screen and moving the mouse.

We now want to set up our celestial coordinate system (we will be using the
Equatorial coordinate system). Open the Sky and viewing options window again, and
click on the “Markings” tab. Now, check the boxes labeled “Equatorial Grid”, “Equator
Line”, and “Ecliptic Line”. This will display the Celestial Equator (in blue) and the Ecliptic
(in Red) on the night sky, as well as lines of Right Ascension and Declination (these

4
lines are displayed in blue). Also, please be aware that the labels for the Right
Ascension and Declination lines are along the edge of the screen and move around a
lot as you move the screen, so in some cases you may need to look around very
carefully to find the label for a grid line, or even click and drag the sky around a bit.
Hours of Right Ascension are labeled at the top of the screen, and degrees of
Declination are labeled at the right side of the screen. In this lab, we want to be able to
view the whole sky, not just what is above the horizon. Therefore, we need to remove
the ground from the screen. To do this, open the Sky and viewing options window
again, and click on the “Landscape” tab. Now, un-check the boxes labeled “Show
ground” and “Show fog”. This should remove the ground from the screen. Close the Sky
and viewing options window, and now you are ready to start the exercise.

READ AND DO THIS IF THE PROGRAM CRASHES WHILE YOU'RE WORKING:

Unfortunately, because it is such a complex program, Stellarium might occasionally
crash (depending on the speed of your computer) as you are trying to work on the lab.
Don't panic! When Windows asks to send an error report, click "Don't Send." Then click
on the Stellarium icon again to restart the program. Follow the steps listed above, and
continue working on the lab.

SOME OF THE INSTRUCTIONS MAY BE CONFUSING AT FIRST. TAKE

YOUR TIME AND READ THEM SEVERAL TIMES TO MAKE SURE YOU
UNDERSTAND. IF YOU GET CONFUSED, ASK FOR HELP (EITHER BY EMAILING
ME OR POSTING ON THE DISCUSSION BOARD). BE PATIENT AND DON’T GET
FRUSTRATED.

1. Using the lines of Right Ascension and Declination displayed on the celestial grid,
find the bright stars at the following coordinates (you can find the name of a star by just
clicking on the star):

Right Ascension Declination Star Name

04h 36m +16o 31’ Aldebaran
06h 45m -16o 43’ Sirius
13h 25m -11o 10’ Spica
16h 29m -26o 26’ Antares
18h 37m +38o 47’ Vega
19h 51m +8o 52’ Altair
20h 41m +45o 17’ Deneb

2. Now lets look at the constellations. To display the constellations, open the Sky and
viewing options window again, and click on the “Markings” tab..Under “Constellations”,
check the boxes labeled “Show labels” and “Show boundaries”. This will display the
constellation names (in blue) and boundaries (dotted red lines) on the night sky. Close

5
the Sky and viewing options window, and locate the constellations that the following
points are within:

Right Ascension Declination Constellation

01h 00m +40o 00’ Andromeda
05h 30m 00o 00’ Orion
07h 00m -22o 00’ Canis Major
08h 00m -55o 00’ Puppis
10h 50m +17o 00’ Leo
11h 30m +55o 00’ Ursa Major
15h 30m -15o 00’ Libra

3. Below is a list of 20 deep sky objects from the Messier catalog (the “M” is for
Messier). We will use Stellarium to gather information on this group of objects. First,
open the “Find” tab on the left-side menu bar. To find an object, move your cursor to the
left side of your screen to bring up the vertical menu again, and click the “Search
window” icon. The first object is M1. Type this object name in the box in the Search
window and press “Enter”. Stellarium should now move to MI. Information on this object
is found in the text box in the upper right corner of the screen (where you found the star
names for part 1). Record proper name of the object as well as its type (nebula, galaxy,
cluster, or “cluster with nebulosity”) below. You can also see what the object looks like
in greater detail by using the scroll wheel on your mouse to “zoom in”.

Object Proper Name Type

M1 Crab Nebula Supernova Remnant
M8 Lagoon Nebula HII Region
M16 Eagle Nebula Cluster Associated With Nebulosity
M20 Trifid Nebula Cluster Associated With Nebulosity
M27 Dumbbell Nebula Planetary Nebula
M31 Andromeda Galaxy Galaxy
M42 Great Orion Nebula HII Region
M44 Beehive Cluster Open Star Cluster
M57 Ring Nebula Planetary Nebula
M104 Sombrero Galaxy Galaxy