If you’re new to astronomy, perhaps the most daunting part about beginning is learning all those stars.
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Relax! It’s a lot easier than you think. Just like moving to a new city, everything will seem unfamiliar at first, but with a little help from some maps, you’ll soon be finding your way around like a pro.
Once you become familiar with the constellations and how they appear to move across the night sky, the rest is easy.
You can download a star map from Sydney Observatory at www.sydneyobservatory.com.au, or any other major city observatory in Australia, writes David Reneke from Australasian Science magazine. These show night sky objects in detail with instructions on how to read them.
Before your head starts to swim, remember it’s impossible to know everything all at once. What might seem confusing at the start will become so routine as time passes that you won’t even think of it. Sometimes you’d be excused for thinking astronomy should be renamed ‘patience’.
I’m continually being asked if we’ll ever visit other stars. I think so but stars are so incredibly far away. Our nearest star, Alpha Centauri, is almost 40 trillion kilometres from Earth. At the fastest speed our spacecraft currently travel it would take almost 30,000 years to get there! A time machine would be handy.
Still, we just might have a time machine of sorts and its right in the closet. Yes, the humble telescope. When you look at the stars at night you’re looking backwards in time. When you use a telescope you’re using a time machine. The light from the stars has taken thousands, even millions of years to get here. Feeling a little small right now?
Hey, grab your scope this Anzac week and duck outside. There’s no moon to wash out your night skies and it’s an excellent time to pull that telescope out of hibernation. At week’s end watch for shadows falling in the valleys and craters along the edge of the Moon. See if you can spot the striking ‘bright rays’ coming out of the large 75 kilometer wide crater, Stevinus, top left.
A quick reminder of my favourite lunar smart phone app. Try ‘MoonPhase’ you’ll love it, then visit my website www.davidreneke.com for your free astronomy newsletter.
