Astronomy C

[batmankiller]

These were questions on the invitationals:
38. What are the 2 coordinates used by astronomers to locate stars on the celestial sphere?
39. Give those 2 coordinates for the Cartwheel Galaxy. (TB #3)

38 I can understand, but 39? are the coordinates for the Cartwheel galaxy special or something? I know we can have a laptop with whatever notes we want, but asking for the right ascension and declension of a galaxy seems overkill and more of memorizing, random useless facts, than testing concepts and understand. What is the likelihood of a question like this on an actual test? I'm paranoid right now and don't want to dive through all the galaxies and their coordinates..

[pjgscioisamazing]

These were questions on the regionals:
38. What are the 2 coordinates used by astronomers to locate stars on the celestial sphere?
39. Give those 2 coordinates for the Cartwheel Galaxy. (TB #3)

38 I can understand, but 39? are the coordinates for the Cartwheel galaxy special or something? I know we can have a laptop with whatever notes we want, but asking for the right ascension and declension of a galaxy seems overkill and more of memorizing, random useless facts, than testing concepts and understand. What is the likelihood of a question like this on an actual test? I'm paranoid right now and don't want to dive through all the galaxies and their coordinates..

I have all that stuff in my notes, cause I guess it's always good to expect the unexpected... Also, it could be because I did Reach for two years and knew all those RA/Dec too...

[Glacierguy1]

Was that really on the regional test?

That seems oddly similar to the test I wrote for the RCS invitational , down to the question number and question, and exact wording.

[RandomPerson]

The test we were given gave a lot on the DSO's, I would just make sure you have good reference materials for those. Especially Epsilon Aurigae.

[Glacierguy1]

Was it about 25 DSO questions followed by 10 multiple choice followed by 5 short answer/FITB, and 2 math questions?

[batmankiller]

yeah woops sorry i meant invitationals.. not regionals ... and where did you find the RA/D coordinates for all the DSOs?

[Glacierguy1]

Various places on the internets including wikipedia and sites off of google.

[batmankiller]

Alright.. I'm paranoid so.. yeah
what info should I have about the appropriate galaxies? (aka what do they usually ask about? Here's my list:
constellation
spectral type (i think there's only one star or stars this year)
cooridinates
pictures (lol)
apparent/absolute magnitude (hard to find absolute for all of them)
random facts..

anything else i'm missing?

[pjgscioisamazing]

It really all depends on the type of object you are getting info for...

For galaxies, obviously: type, hubble classification, diameter, nucleus, number of stars, etc.

Whereas for globular clusters, there's a lot less information, although it's similar.

Basically, it's a lot of random facts, that are important.. ANd yes, there's only one star on the list: Epsilon Aurigae. Unless you count the companion to the stellar black hole in M33 X-7

[pjgscioisamazing]

would dark matter/energy be something worth investing time into or no?

Completely