John Griffiths Astro Pages

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GCSE Astronomy >  [Lesson Summary Sheets]  > St Olave’s

· Altitude ands azimuth coordinates

 

· Celestial coordinates  - handout – Right Ascension and Declination  - more later

 

· Polaris and the North Celestial Pole – rotation of the sky around the Pole as the Earth spins

 

· Stars that never set form a particular latitude = Circumpolar Stars

 

· Look at CD handed out with Powerpoints – ‘Celestial Coordinates’

 

Weeks work

 

· Study the reasons for libration in the Moon

 

· Coursework – refine choice of two projects

 

 

 

Week 4 (13th October 2009)

 

· Apollo video

 

· Celestial Coordinates – Right Ascension and Declination

 

· Exercise – estimating RA and Dec

 

· Circumpolar stars

 

· To study – Celestial Coordinates PPt on disc

 

· To continue – Coursework

 

 

 

 

GCSE Astronomy — Lesson Summary Sheets—Year 2009/10—St Olave’s

 

Week 5 (20th October 2009)

 

· Circumpolar stars – review  - calculations next session (Celestial Coordinates PPt)

 

· The seasons – Days and Seasons PPt

 

· The ecliptic – Celestial Coordinates PPt

 

· Earth as a Planet (PPt) – introduction - comparative geology – comparing the Earth with other planets

 

· Basic introduction to measuring time – Sidereal Time and Solar Time

 

· Star chart handouts - using Plough to find Polaris and Arcturus and using Orion to ‘star hop’.

 

Work over half term

 

· Coursework

 

· Read PPts on ‘Days and Seasons’ and ‘Earth as a Planet’

 

 

 

Week 6 (10th November 2009)

 

· The ecliptic (plane of the Solar System, path of the Sun across the sky across the year, where the planets ate found in the sky and the path across the sky that defines the Zodiac constellations). Sun’s declination varies over the year from +23.5 degrees to -23.5 degrees – which is the obliquity of the ecliptic.