Night Lab

A few nights ago we had our first night lab for the course.  I've always struggled a little bit about what to do for a night lab.  My colleague used to have students sketch a constellation, trying to be accurate about orientation and angular separation, and then they spent the rest of the time looking through the telescope or just looking at the overall night sky.  I have abandoned the constellation sketch.  I think his motivation was to get them doing SOME real observations.  But now I have them observing lots of things (via computer simulation) so I don't feel a need to force the constellation sketch.  I also have them do real observations of the Moon as part of a project, which I will describe later.

So now the night labs consist of a tour of the night sky with special emphasis on features discussed in the course: finding Polaris, the connection between Polaris' altitude and our latitude on Earth, the apparent rotation of the night sky, the Ecliptic and the constellations of the zodiac (for this lab we mainly looked at Scorpius/Ophiuchus and Sagittarius), and I usually get to point out that any visible planets or the Moon are right near the Ecliptic.  We discuss some other prominent constellations (this time Pegasus and Andromeda, Cygnus, Cassiopeia, and of course Ursa Major) as well as particularly bright stars (for this lab: Arcturus, Antares, Vega).

The rest of our time is spent looking through the telescope.  I try to make sure they get to see a wide variety of things.  We were able to look at Saturn and Mars just before they set.  The view was pretty hazy, but good enough to clearly see Saturn's rings through the 14 inch SCT.  After that we looked at two globular clusters (M 13 and M 5), two planetary nebulae (the Ring and the Dumbbell), a double star (Albireo), and a galaxy (good old Andromeda).  Not a bad mix.  They were all pretty impressed with the views of M 13 and the Ring Nebula.  We had some trouble with the alignment of our 155 mm apochromatic refractor (RA and Dec locks kept coming loose) so we didn't get to see as much as I hoped.  But we saw enough that, along with the roll-off roof and my green laser pointer, they were impressed.

And that, I think, is the real purpose of the night lab.  Get them out where the sky is dark and show them how beautiful it is.  Many of them had never really seen the Milky Way before.  Then show them the additional beauty that is accessible via telescope.  Once you start talking about what we are seeing (that galaxy is 2.5 million light years away, that cluster has half a million stars in it, that glowing gas cloud is the outer layer of a star that has been blown off, etc) it is hard for them not to be fascinated.  Hearing a student say "that's the coolest thing I have ever seen" and then hearing her basically say the same thing again later in the night makes all the effort of a night lab worth while.