Doing Astronomy

Tools and Techniques used in astronomy

Labs

My Special Place (in the SDSS Database): Find and save objects from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey using SkyServer and Voyages.

Astro Imaging Lab : Students request images from robotic telescopes and assemble a 3-color picture

Shorter Activities (linked below)

• • Data Collecting: The student investigates basic methods of data collecting in the lab using a fake data set. The data collection method is restricted to simulate some of the problems of astronomy.

  • How Big is Big?: Typical sizes and distances in the universe, powers of ten notation

  • Measuring your rate of dark adaption under dark skies: Although this was written for the UW's original mechanical planetarium, there's no reason it wouldn't work in an actual dark site.

  • Telescopes: The student will learn to identify the parts, functions, magnification, and light gathering power of the classroom refracting telescopes, and learn how to operate the classroom telescopes.