Astronomy is a science of observation at really long distances over really long periods of time. Once upon a time, only a few people had access to expensive and very fragile telescopes. Today, via the Internet, everyone can observe stars, planets, and other phenomena. On sites such as the MicroObservatory, jointly run by Smithsonian Institute and Harvard University, students may request control of the telescope to point it in a certain direction and snap pictures of what they see. In this activity, you will use the NASA website dedicated to the Hubble Space Telescope, hubblesite.org, to collect images of stars at different points in their life cycle. Browsing the site, choose your favorite image in each of the following categories:

• nebulae • massive star • star field • white dwarf • variable star • protoplanetary disk

Collect your list of favorite stars as a series of links and save it as a word processing document. Save this for later reference as it might be helpful in future units.

BIG HISTORY PROJECT / LESSON 2.3

YOU ARE THE ASTRONOMER

BIG HISTORY PROJECT / LESSON 2.3

YOU ARE THE ASTRONOMER

Resources:

NASA Hubble Space Telescope http://hubblesite.org/

MicroObservatory Robotic Telescope Network http://mo-www.harvard.edu/MicroObservatory/

SkyView Internet Virtual Telescope http://skyview.gsfc.nasa.gov