ARTICLES
Observation Studies of Constellations in the Earth and Space (continued)
Looking south again down towards the horizon in the vicinity of
faint southern constellations of Tucana, Hydrus and Dorado (use
star charts if needed) will reveal two very large objects that look
like cloud patches. These are in fact neighbouring galaxies to
our own, and are referred to as the Large and Small Magellanic
Clouds after the explorer who first noted them. They are shown in
Picture 10 below.
Photo 8: Capricornus
The two brighter stars on the left horn are Alpha and Beta
Capricorni. The two stars forming the pointy bottom are Gamma
and Delta Capricorni. Just to the right of these two bottom stars
is the M30 globular cluster. Looking upwards, just above the
two stars that form the right hand horn is a faint spiral galaxy,
NGC6907.
Photo 10: The Large and Small Magellanic clouds are galaxies
Grus is an exceptionally bright constellation found by looking
directly south and halfway up the horizon an hour after sunset. As
Photo 9 shows Grus really does look like the crane it was named
after. The bright star at top centre is Alpha Gruis, also called
Alnair. This is a large blue star. Below it are two sets of easily
identifiable double stars. These stars are of course unrelated
and only look double because of our vantage point on Earth.
Following the two double stars towards the next star along will
lead to the Spare Tyre nebula (best seen with binoculars though).
Doing observation study
There are some logistical things worth doing if you want the
observation study to be successful, especially if it is being done
as a homework task. In a previous article I explained the ‘8 steps
to the heavens’ which outlined the logistical steps required to
conduct observations of the night sky (De Nobile, 2017). Whilst
there is no space here to repeat that information, I have included
an overview of the eight steps below for constellation studies.
Step 1: Find information about constellations and objects yourself
using reliable sources such as Astronomy magazine, Sky &
Telescope website, NASA website and the Sydney Observatory.
These are also good sources of star charts and sky maps for
various months or times of the year.
Step 2: Plan ahead for teaching by aligning teaching sequences
to the best times of the year for the particular constellations to be
studied.
Step 3: Do the groundwork by planning any pre-teaching of skills
relevant to the observation studies including drawing, labelling
and night time observing.
Step 4: Introduce the task with clear directions about directions
to look (star charts are helpful here), knowing how to determine
directions (maybe using sunset as a rough gauge for ‘west’),
Photo 9: Grus
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SCIENCE EDUCATIONAL NEWS VOL 68 NO 4