Intro to Astronomy Assignment

BEFORE YOU BEGIN - This is important for all of the labs. Create a new document for your responses with the following naming convention:

Lastname_Firstname_Sun_Lab.doc.

For example, Smith_John_Sun_Lab.doc.

Type your responses into your blank document, being careful to include headings for the six sections of the lab (Phase I through Phase VI) and any question numbers. To submit your assignment, upload this document plus any additional documents you may have, such as screenshots of your data (or you can paste those directly into your document). All submitted labs will be automatically scanned by the anti-plagiarism Turnitin.com.

Phase I—You will be guided through exploring an interactive sky chart at www.heavens-above.com. (Please note that if you ever want to go play with the Heavens Above web site, which has lots of cool things about the sky, including how to find and identify satellite passes, do NOT forget the hyphen in the web address...'nuff said.) Follow the instructions in the Exploration Part A and Exploration Part B sections, and enter your answers directly in the Word document.

Phase II—You will now use the site to answer some questions and then analyze a provided generalization based on your evidence.

Phase III—You are given some data collected from the site, and asked to come up with a conclusion based on that data (in other words, an evidence-based conclusion). Make sure that you mention the specific pieces of data that you are using for evidence.

Phase IV—In this phase, you are given a research question and asked to come up with a step-by-step method of collecting the evidence needed to answer this question. You do not need to do the whole data collection process, but you do need to explain what someone would need to do (again, further instructions are in the lab document). You must use heavens-above.com for this (and all) phases of the lab. Do not make your instructions be about outdoor observations. Write it so that someone else could follow your step-by-step procedure to successfully collect the needed data.

Phase V—Now, based on what you have done in the first four phases, you will come up with your own answerable research question that can be answered using the Heavens Above (or similar) site. Don't worry, the question does not need to be complex or sophisticated, but it does need to be answerable, by you, using this web site. You will write your question, the procedure to collect the evidence (like in phase IV), collect the data (use the data table in phase III as a rough guide), and come to an evidence-based conclusion (like you did in phase III).

Phase VI—Finally, you will write a short (50-word) summary (details in the lab document). This should not be information from your textbook or other sources.

Lastly, upload your completed lab document to the assignments area (remember that your name must be in the name of the file).

Questions—Post any questions about the lab to the Lab Q&A Forum. Please include the lab number in your subject line. You can also send me a message with questions.

Additional fun—As mentioned above, the Heavens Above site can help you find satellite passes (including the International Space Station and the Hubble Space Telescope) over your location. I encourage you to play around and see what you can find to see in the night sky.