Lakeshore Library Star Party

Lakeshore Library System’s ‘Dream Big: READ’ Star Party
Saturday, July 28^th, 2012

Approximately 200 members of the Lakeshore Library System participated in the Dream Big READ program and were rewarded by coming to Yerkes Observatory for a private star party! There were several different telescopes set up with knowledgeable people eager to explain what was up in the sky and answer any questions.  In addition to the many telescopes, activities were set up all over Yerkes for families to take part in.

It was a beautiful, clear night for stargazing!  Among the telescopes on the south lawn were a few Dobsonians, an i-Optron, a 12” Meade LX200, a Celestron, a Questar, ‘Sirius B’ which is Yerkes 8” telescope in the white dome, and several more. Some of the celestial objects observed that night were Saturn, the Moon, double stars and nebulae.

Activities:

Family Sun Craft- Family members worked together to trace out their hands on construction paper and attach them to a paper plate to create a cute sun! They decorated it, looped on a string, and brought it with them to hang up at home.

Crater Demo- One of our high school students, Raki, demonstrated how craters form and disappear on planets.  He had kids use rocks to create craters in a sand pile.  Then he explained how a planet with an atmosphere has weather (rain, wind, etc.) to slowly wear down craters.  He demonstrated this with a watering can and a fan.

Story Reading- Kids of all ages gathered around Rhonda in the Yerkes library to hear her read exciting stories about space.

Skynet- We had several computers set up in the Morgan room for everyone to explore Skynet. Skynet is a network of telescopes that can be controlled remotely.  Families were able to ask a telescope in Chile to take a picture of the celestial object of their choice and send it directly to their email!

Tour- Richard Dreisser gave 3 of his very entertaining and informative tours of the history of the building and the famous 40” telescope.

24” Tour- Teenagers ages 12 and up and their parent were able to go up the spiral staircase in the north tower and look through the 24” telescope.

School Field Trip - 8th Grade

May 8th, 2012 - School Field Trip

Among the many things offered at Yerkes is the School Outreach Program. Schools are invited to bring their students to Yerkes to learn about astronomy through different line ups of exciting activities.

Recently a school group came to Yerkes and we did some exciting activities with them. The first thing the students did when they got here was set up cameras in the south lawn for star trails.
Star Trails: A time-lapse photograph showing the movement of the stars in the night sky.

Example of a Star Trail at Yerkes

Students were also given a grand tour of the observatory. During this tour they were taken to our 40 inch refracting telescope. At this telescope they took pictures and reviewed concepts about the night sky and the difference between refracting and reflecting telescopes.

Students visited the 40inch

Refracting Telescopes: Uses lenses to magnify an image. Often skews the colors of an image.
Reflecting Telescopes: Uses mirrors to magnify an image. Does not skew the colors of an image.

Student looking at 40 in

Student looking at 40 in

After looking at the 40inch telescope the students went to one of the smaller telescopes on our property. They used the 24 inch reflecting telescope to do some observing of their own.

With the 24 inch telescope the students each got a chance to operate the telescopes controls. Whether they moved the scope or raised the floor, each student had a chance to use the control paddle. Students observed with the telescope were Saturn, Mars and a Globular Cluster.

View of Saturn through a telescope

On the tour the students were shown the HAWC project. This is the big project happening at Yerkes right now. Yerkes is making a large Infra-red camera for the NASA Sofia airplane. 

HAWC Infra-Red Telescope

Students then went to the library and used the computer to request images though SkyNet. SkyNet is operated through the PROMPT telescope in Chile. With SkyNet you can request a picture taken at the observatory there!

Image of the Eagle Nebula taken by PROMPT

After all of this the students took some pictures with the Education Outreach Coordinator, Vivian Hoette and went home with some new astronomy experience under their belts.

Students and guide Vivian pose by the 40in

Students and guide Vivian pose in the Library

SolarScope Instructions

WARNING! Do NOT look directly at the sun or put your head in the box. Look ONLY at the projected image.

1.) Point the scope (long, metal tube that goes through the outside of the box) at the sun. There is no shadow (of the tube) on the top of the box when this is pointed directly at the sun.

Position the Solarscope

2.) Adjust the box up or down until a small, white dot appears on the wood panel with the mirror (small, metal piece).

Small white dot is the image of the sun to be projected

3.) Continue to adjust the box to the left or right until the small white dot is on the mirror.

Small, bright white dot should be moved to the center of mirror

4.) Look for the sun to appear on the top white panel.

5.) Look for Sunspots.

Example of SunSpots with the SolarScope

Do NOT look directly at the sun or put your head in the box. Look only at the projected image.

**Sunspots: On the image Sunspots will appear as small, black splotches. These are areas of large magnetic storms on the surface of the sun.

Transit of Venus with the SolarScope

Transit of Venus 2012

Who: Hundreds of people and amateur astronomers

Where: Yerkes Observatory and Big Foot Beach State Park

When: Tuesday, June 5^th.  5:04pm Central Time

Visitors standing outside the 8" telescope, Sirius B.

What is a transit?

Venus is on an orbit that lies in between the Sun and the Earth. Since the plane of Earth’s orbit is tilted about 7 degrees and Venus’s orbital plane is tilted about 3 degrees, Venus rarely passes in front of the Sun as seen from Earth.  Transits of Venus occur in pairs 8 years apart with a gap of 120 or 105 years until the next pair! In our lifetime, we were only able to see the 2004 and 2012 transits.

How did we see it?

There were a lot of different instruments set up to view the transit including telescopes, solarscopes, binoculars, and a live feed from the observatory in Mauna Kea, Hawaii!

      

Looking at the transit through the solarscopes. 

Included in the large collection of telescopes set up were a few provided by amateur astronomers in the area.  All of them were equipped with solar filters because it is very dangerous to look directly at the sun, especially through a telescope.

Viewing the transit through a sun funnel.

Viewing the transit just above the treetops.

Family Activities:

We had several family activity tables where kids of all ages and their parents participated and learned some cool, new astronomy facts in the process. 

UV Bead Bracelets:

At one table, everyone learned about the Sun’s strong UV (ultraviolet) rays.  We tested how well different household items blocked UV light. To do that, we used beads that changed color when UV light hit them.  We tried to block the sunlight with sunglasses, clothing, and sunblock. After we figured out what works best, we fashioned the beads into a fun bracelet to take home!

Making UV Bead Bracelets!

Stained Glass Coloring:

At the coloring table, there was a really cool picture of Jeremiah Horrocks watching the Transit of Venus in 1639!  This historic event was remembered in a stained glass window that everyone was able to recreate by coloring his or her own picture.

Parallax:

Everyone was also able to learn how astronomers use parallax to figure out how far a celestial object, such as a star or galaxy, is from the Earth.  Parallax is the phenomenon where an object appears to move in the sky depending on when we look at it. Using some fancy math, astronomers can use the distance the object appeared to move to determine how far away it is! We learned how parallax works in our everyday life by trying a few simple tricks. For example, we held our thumb out in front of us, closed one eye at a time and watched as our thumb appeared to move!

Plasma Demonstration:

Francis Dellutri gave a presentation with several cool demos about what plasma is and where we can find it. Plasma, which makes up our Sun, is the “fourth state of matter” and occurs when very energetic gas causes electrons to break free of their nucleus.  She had hands-on activities to demonstrate the effect different elements have on the plasma gas.

Overall, we spent a wonderful afternoon with the people of our community viewing something amazing that we won’t have a chance to see again!

Final Family Night 2012

May 10th - Final Family Night

This was, sadly, our last Family Night of the school year; but we will have regular Family nights starting back up in September!

We wanted to make the last Family Night event something different and fun for the kids and their parents. So, we did some solar observing, something most kids have never done. The students got to view the sun in a couple different ways!

The first way the students were able to view the sun was using a small solar telescope, the iOptron. This telescope has a special filter that allows you to look at the sun without damaging your eyes.

The students also had the chance to use a sun spotter. The sun spotter shows a projected view of the sun. With this they were able to find sun spots.
Sun spots: look like black splotches or speckles on the sun spotter. These are large magnetic storms! The sun spot we viewed was #AR1476.

The last way students viewed the sun was through special solar viewing shades. These look like 3-D glasses but are very different. 3-D glasses are NOT to be used for solar observing. These are called eclipse shades and can be bought at this website.

Eclipse Shades

After looking at the sun the students went on a "Planet Walk." This is a model used to show the relative size and distances of the planets. The model was written by Guy Ottewell and put together by Yerkes employee Rebecca Russell.

The last thing the families did was look through Sirius B at Venus. Those who stayed later also looked at Mars and Saturn.

Students were given certificates and they also signed certificates for the adults as a "Thank You" for helping with Family Nights. Overall it was a great day full of astronomy and family activities.