Hello, my name is Mitsuki. I’m currently a junior, making astronomical observations using a digital camera on campus. I like to take pictures of nature outside, especially under the starry sky. I worked with a digital camera before, but I don't have much knowledge about astronomy. Therefore, I'll start this project with learning astronomy. The reason why I decided to do this project is that I'm currently interested in astronomy, and I want to combine the ideas of astronomy and digital cameras. I would like to share what information the starry sky pictures give us every week, and the beautiful sky of Emma Willard!
I like to take photos of the starry sky from Emma Willard, but I usually struggle with finding which stars in which directions with a paperback encyclopedia of stars in the dark. Then, I thought making a digital planisphere—which can determine the directions of stars by entering dates and position(coordinates)—can be helpful for my photo shoots. I started this project by learning the basics of astronomy to get knowledge and understanding of how stars and planets move constantly and how they look from the Earth. With this solid knowledge and understanding, I’ve started making a digital planisphere in Processing by using the Yale Bright Star Catalog as a source of names, positions, and magnitudes of more than 8000 stars. Simultaneously, I observed the stars weekly from Emma Willard using a digital camera with a GPS unit and a computerized telescope and collected photos as information that might be usable for my digital planisphere and also for improving my photo skills. Through this progress, the most interesting takeaway so far is that retrograde can be observed from Earth, since the orbital periods of the planets are all different.
Resource for star positions
If the environment is good, you can see up to about 6000 stars from first to sixth magnitude with the naked eye. However, it is difficult to observe all 6,000 stars from this campus, so I will first make it possible to output stars up to magnitude 2. There are 21 first-magnitude stars(apparent magnitude < 1.5), 38 second-magnitude stars(1.5 ≤ apparent magnitude < 2.5), and a total of 58 stars including Polaris.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1V4c2EtZPqM-cJiM3nODCVQULMG-eONM28wEyH6DHiho/edit?usp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1_PJjsrRBKaoINVhs9TVCYrD4G61ksa0kyt1PynsLbJo/edit?usp=sharing
NASA. (2021, June 2). Moon phases. NASA. Retrieved November 4, 2021, from
https://moon.nasa.gov/moon-in-motion/moon-phases/
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is the federal agency responsible for space programs within the U.S. government, and this page clearly shows the movement of the Moon and how it looks from Earth. In particular, this page is useful for accumulating basic knowledge about observing the phases of the moon. NASA always publish the accurate information about space science.
NASA. (2021, August 30). Our Solar System. NASA. Retrieved November 4, 2021, from
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/solar-system/our-solar-system/overview/
This page provides a detailed visual explanation of the different types of stars in each solar system and their movements.
Yale Bright Star Catalog, [http://tdc-www.harvard.edu/catalogs/bsc5.html.](http://tdc-www.harvard.edu/catalogs/bsc5.html)
This catalog is a Bright Star Catalog (BSC) of basic astronomical and astrophysical data on stars that is widely used as a source of information. it is maintained by Dorrit Hoffleit of the Department of Astronomy, Yale University and Wayne H. Warren Jr. of the ST Systems Corporation, It is maintained by Dorrit Hoffleit, Department of Astronomy, Yale University, and Wayne H. Warren Jr., National Space Science Data Center, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.