Astronomy

This booklet will guide you

through some simple star ga-
zing and teach you some sci-
ence about what you‘re seeing. What you‘ll need
Take this booklet with you, find Patience!
somewhere with an open view This leaflet
of the night sky, and without Warm clothes
any bright lights around (the Blankets or sleeping bags
mountain huts around Kander- Light with a red mode
steg are all very good). Get Telescope or binoculars
comfy and see what you can
see.
 Some Tips Before You Start
Star gazing requires patience. Take your time and don‘t give up.
Be aware that your eyes will adjust to the dark over time. So you
will see more the longer you are in the dark. This takes about 30
minutes to come to full effect and will be ruined by looking at a
light for even a second. If you need to use a light, use one with a
red mode as red light has a much lesser effect on your eyes.
Above all, do not look at your phone. The screen emits blue light
which is the most damaging of all and will undo all of your wai-
ting.
If you have access to a telescope or some binoculars then take
them along, but your eyes are often enough to reveal some very
interesting things. (The Upper Hut has a small telescope and some
binoculars which you are free to use if you are staying there).

A Little History
Astronomy is the world’s oldest science. For thousands of years peo-
ple have been looking upwards and attempting to explain what they
saw. It began when the ancient myths were linked to the sky by the
constellations - pictures in the stars that tell stories. With the advent
of the telescope astronomy became a study of the stars themselves,
leading to the discovery of planets other than our own, of galaxies
and pushing our understanding of the universe forwards to the
frontiers of modern physics. Astronomy remains an active science
with new and exciting discoveries still being made, and many ques-
tions still lacking answers.

The next pages will guide you through locating some different ob-
jects. Have a quick read through before you go, and enjoy.
Stars
Where better to begin than with the stars? They may seem a little
obvious, but they are actually a lot more varied and interesting than
they appear.
Try looking closely at a few bright stars. Notice their colours. Some
are red, some blue, some yellow, some white. This colour difference
is directly linked to the temperature of a star, which is in turn linked
to its age.
The youngest, hottest stars are bright blue. These are brand new
stars and reach temperatures of hundreds of thousands of Degrees
Celsius. The oldest stars are red. They are only a few thousand De-
grees Celsius but are billions of years old, and are approaching the
end of their lives. This relationship between temperature and colour
is so reliable that scientists can accurately measure the temperature
of a distant star using just its colour
In fact, stars range in size from the size of a small city (around 20km)
to millions of kilometers. Our own star, the Sun, is about 6000 De-
grees Celsius and 1,400,000km across. The image below shows the
relative sizes of a handful of stars, including the Sun.
The Milky Way
The milky way is our galaxy. Every star in the night sky exists within
the milky way so no matter where you look you are observing the
milky way!
However, because it is a disc shape the Milky Way presents itself as a
wide stripe across the sky. It is only visible in the absence of unnatu-
ral light but it is one of the finest and most often overlooked features
of the night sky.
Once your eyes have adjusted to the dark see if you can make out a
stripe running North to South across the sky. That is the milky Way.

Most of what you are looking at

is huge amounts of dust and grit
illuminated by starlight, the
darker sections are caused by
this dust blocking out the star-
light from behind.
The Milky way contains be-
tween 2 Billion and 4 Billion
stars, and at its centre is a super-
massive black hole. The full gal-
axy is around 100,000 light
years across. (That’s about
1,000,000,000,000,000,000 km!)
The Orion Nebula
Next we can try to spot a slightly
trickier astronomical object. The
constellation of Orion is perhaps
the most famous and easily recog-
nized in the northern sky. It re-
presents a hunter with a bow rai-
sed to Taurus, the bull.

The three stars of Orion’s belt are

very easy to spot, and hanging
from his belt is his sword. This is
represented by three bright blue
stars down and left from the belt.
Look at the sword through a tele-
scope or some binoculars. You
should see some swirls and clouds
wrapping around the three stars
of the sword. This is the Orion Ne-
bula.
What is a Nebula?
A nebula is a star forming regi-
on. It is formed of very hot dust
and gas that has begun clum-
ping together due to gravity.
When these clumps get big
enough they begin to shine and
a star is born. These stars light
up the dust surrounding them
and make the patterns you can
see in the sword of Orion.
The Andromeda Galaxy
We have already had a look for the Milky Way, our own galaxy
which we viewed from within. Next you can try and spot another
galaxy.
The Andromeda Galaxy is the
only galaxy visible to the na-
ked eye, to which it looks like a
pale yellow smear. Through
even a cheap pair of binoculars
however, the view can be ama-
zing.

Finding it can, however, be a little difficult the first time. It lies in the
constellation of Andromeda. This is found by locating Pegasus,
which in summer will lie in the Eastern sky, and forms a very big
square of four bright stars. In Kandersteg the bottom star may be
blocked out by the mountains, especially before midnight. The cons-
tellation of Andromeda extends left from the square, and the
Andromeda Galaxy is located above this.
The Planets
The planets were first spotted by ancient Greek astronomers who
noticed that the position of certain stars changed in the sky over
time. The name “planet” comes from the Greek word for “wanderer”.
When the telescope was invented by Galileo, the first thing he did
was to observe the planets, and to discover the moons of Jupiter.
Aside from the Moon and the Sun, three planets are the brightest ob-
jects in the night sky. These are Venus, Jupiter and Mars.

Venus is easily recognised as it

looks like a very bright white
star, Mars can be spotted from its
very obvious red colour, but Ju-
piter is by far the most reward-
ing to observe. It is also the one
which moves slowest across the
sky. It will consistently appear as
a bright star in the south-eastern
sky at midnight until around
2022, after which it will begin to
rise later in the night. If you can’t
see it it may be behind the
mountains, but it will drift high-
er in the sky throughout the
night, so have patience.
Looking through either a telescope or some binoculars you can easi-
ly see several of Jupiter’s moons. Typically you can see the four orig-
inally observed by Galileo –Io, Ganymede, Europa and Callisto.
These moons are orbiting Jupiter meaning every time you look they
will have moved, so if you don’t see all four it could be that one is
behind Jupiter itself. In fact Jupiter has more than 70 moons, but
many are far too small to see with any optical telescope.
On a very clear night you might even make out the stripes on Jupi-
ter itself. These are caused by very violent winds in the planet’s at-
mosphere, meaning you are observing the weather on a planet
500,000,000km away!
Jupiter is the largest and heaviest planet in our solar system and is
made up of very hot gasses swirling around a super-heated iron
core.

With a slightly stronger tele-

scope it is also worth a shot to
find Saturn. This is the next
planet from the Sun after Jupi-
ter and is famous for its rings.
Until 2022 Saturn will be seen
as a bright star between South-
west and Southeast at around
23:00. The way to tell it from
the stars is by its “ears“ -
throufg an amateur telescope
the rings can‘t be resolved from
the planet itself and appear as
two bulges on the sides.
Meteor Showers
If you are lucky enough to be visiting us at the right time of year you
will be able to watch a meteor shower. These last for periods of a few
nights and occur when the Earth drifts through a region with lots of
dust and rocks. Some of this falls to earth and burns up in our atmo-
sphere, giving us shooting stars.
During a busy meteor shower you can spot four or five shooting stars
per second. Just lie back on a blanket, watch the sky and enjoy the
show.
The best summer showers occur at the following times, more accura-
te dates for each year can be found through a simple internet search
- ask a pinkie in Reception to google it for you!

Eta Aquarids - Early May

Delta Aquarids - The end of July
Perseids - Around the 10th of
August
Draconids - Early October