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The night sky is full of objects to
view. A telescope is not necessary to view some of
the more prominent objects, but first it is
important to introduce the most important feature:
the stars. |
The
stars appear to form a sphere surrounding the
Earth, so it is not by accident that it is named the
Celestial Sphere. However, in reality there is no
sphere, and the
stars are actually in a variety of
distances from the
Earth. It is also important to
understand that
all of the
stars visible in the night sky are a part
of
our galaxy - the
Milky Way. The most distant
stars make up a faint band of
our galaxy that is
viewable from the darkest locations.
In order to help find our way around the night
sky, various groupings of
stars are identified as
constellations. These constellations make up mythic
characters like Pegasus, Andromeda, and Orion for
the
northern hemisphere, and objects like Telescopium, Tucana and Crux for the
southern
hemisphere.
In total, there are
88 constellations. With the
exception of the constellations of the
Zodiac, there
are no specific arrangements to the constellations.
For more information on the
Zodiac, click
here.
Because the
Earth is tilted by 23.45º,
the
northern hemisphere (United States, Canada,
Europe, Asia, and Russia) can see some of the
southern hemisphere (Australia, New Zealand, South
America, Antarctica and the southern parts of Africa)
stars and visa versa, it
can be difficult to differentiate what can and
cannot be seen from your exact location so please
consult your local almanac.
I have divided the
sky into the
northern and
southern hemispheres: For
the location of the northern hemisphere
celestial
sphere, I chose San Francisco, California. For the
southern hemisphere, I chose Sydney, Australia.
These pages are designed to introduce you to the
night sky, but I highly recommend a good
star chart
or
computer software
star charting program to help
increase your familiarity. Of course, nothing takes
the place of actually stepping outside and looking
for yourself!
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