So I'm looking at a view of the sky, and I see this really bright star. How can I find out more information about it - like how far away it is and how bright it really is? And you know, I keep hearing about this star called Betelgeuse (it took me forever to figure out how to spell that!). Can I find information about it without being sure where it is in the sky?
Finding information on a specific object is pretty easy inside of the StarCalc program. If you know its proper name, OR you can locate it on the sky map, you can find information about it.
Say we want to find out about Sirius, "the Dog Star", as it is commonly known.
It's the same time as before - 8 pm on the night of March 11, in State College, PA. Finding Sirius on the sky map is pretty easy. It's near the constellation Orion, which we found before. Look a little to the southwest of Orion. There's a extremely bright star there, in the constellation Canis Major. That's Sirius.
To find information on Sirius:
1: Click on the star with the selection cursor, on the sidebar. A small box should appear around the star, as in the picture above. (Not the circle - I added that!)
2: Go to the top menu bar, and click on the "Services" menu.
3: Move the cursor until it highlights the choice "Information About..."
4: Go down to "Selected Objects" and click the mouse once.
Now, you have a dialog box full of information about Sirius!
In StarCalc, Simply click on the box to get rising and setting information for each star. In this tutorial screen, though, clicking on different areas of the image will take you to the academic sections of this tutorial where each piece of information is explained. You can also explore these areas of the tutorial yourself - they're all in the third section of this tutorial.
To find a star by its 'proper name' - that is, its common name, one that doesn't include a lot of numbers and tends to be just one word. (Sirius, for example, as opposed to "the Dog Star" or a Canis Majoris.) As long as you know that (and the star is in the StarCalc program) you can find out where the star is on the sky. Here's how it works:
1:
Go to the Services Menu
2: Select "Find..."
3: Highlight
"Star by its proper name" and click. You'll be presented with a
list, like the one shown below.
4: Type the name of the star in the box at the top, or scan the list using the scrollbar and select the one you want using the mouse.
5: Click "Find". StarCalc will locate the star for you, and present a star map set to the time of day when the star is at or near the zenith. A box will appear around the star and blink several times so you can find it.
Note: If the star is not visible from the latitude of the location you have your program set to, you will not be able to see the star. Instead, you'll get this error message:
Once you've located the star
on the sky, you can follow the exact same procedure as was outlined above
for finding information about that star.
What is its parallax angle? What is its HR designation?
Think you've got it? Click here to check!
