Astronomy

[eak227]

So, guys? How many of you were aware the Google Earth is now Google Universe as well??

You hit the Saturn button on Google Earth and it flips and shows you the sky, constellations, all the important locations of the universe. It's clearly still in it's early stages, but still, I'm very impressed.

[Sheogorath]

I didn't know that it was now called Google Universe, however I have used Google Earth and just switched it to sky mode to see all the constellations and stuff. It's been there for awhile now.

[eak227]

It's technically not called that... I made it up, but it sure sounds cooler that way. Google Earth just doesn't really seem to apply anymore.

[Pleiades]

I just checked it out and I love it!! I'll be using it a lot and i'll show it to my partner because he doesnt know any constellations or DSOs yet. Thanks for letting us know!

[Fireheart347]

I think a binder is alot better than a labtop. It might take for ever to load pages and you never know with computers.

[rocketman1555]

i think laptops can be a little easier to organize things on, and it doesn't waste as much paper, but for most events binders are more practical

[Fireheart347]

How much do DSO's impact the test. Are the minor or important??

[Glacierguy1]

At regionals last year, It was DSO Pictures, Variable Groups partly involving DSOs, Constellations of DSOs, and Plotting DSOs on a stellar Rt. Ascension/Declination. So... Yeah.

[eak227]

The tests revolve around the DSO's. Like.. most of them will be like: Identify this object. Now that you know what kind it is, answer these general questions about this type of variable star. So like... even if you know everything about variable stars, if you don't know the DSOs, you won't know what type of star the questions are asking about.

It's really not that hard to learn them. Google them, print out the pretty pictures and put them into the binder with a name on them. Look on Chandra or wikipedia or APOD and see what general info you can find about it (age, distance, type of star, location in the sky, stage in evolution are the most important), and then when you see a picture on the test, match them up.

[binary010101]

Do you know if there's any way to program a TI-84 (Silver Edition) to do the logarithmic calculations for you? I really don't feel like having to type it in every single time.