FIRST OBSERVATION NIGHT
We are in the situation that we went to the camp with friends and the sunset is ending y the night sky is starting to apear, a lot of star fill the sky.
It’s beautiful but you dont understand what are you looking, It’s like to watch a picture without any previous context, yes, you can apreciaty that it’s beautiful, but if you knew the history, the context, the motivations of the painter, how was technically made…
With that you would enjoy in another level the painting, and you would see details that you didn’t apreciate before.
HOW TO GUIDE US
Tools: There are many methods to guide us such as a planisphere, a compass, a map and coordinates, and we also have many mobile apps that tell us exactly what are we looking in the sky.
Inconvinients: All of these methods are very usefull but make us become dependant, but what happend when the night comes and you dont have anything of this…
Observe the sky: You only need to look up at the sky and observe, I’m going to show you several ways to orient yourself using the sky, that are completely free, without satellites, batteries and you will always have on hand.
WHERE TO GO
Far from cities: As far as possible from the cities its better, the light that arrive from the space is so weak that is very easy to eclipse, but even with that from a capital there is things that you can still see, we can use natural barriers to block the pollution such as trees or mountains.
Height: In general speaking, the higher you go, better you’ll see, the closer something is to the horizon more it will twinkle, and more moisture is in the atmosphere, the reasson is the atmosphere, it’s like to watch through a fisbowl, the light comming from the space has to pass thorugh the air above you, this is why stars twinkle, is not the stars themselves that change the brightness, it is the fluid between them and us distorting the objects. So the less air above us better, this is why the astronomical observatories are usually locatet in dry high places to reduce the effects of the atmosphere
The moon: The moon is another thing that you have to avoid when you wanna appreciate the night sky, even if its beautiful and romantic it reflect the solar light, for example it’s not possible too see the milky way during the full moon nights, at least make sure it does not rise above the horizon during the hours you are stargazing.
Night vision: You have to be very carefull with the bright, since to enjoy a starry sky in all its splendor your eyes need to adapt to the darkness, which takes time, about 15 minutes to see well in the dark and up to 45 to catch the details, the light of the phone could have the opposite effect, making you wait another 45 minutes to adapt, that is why its recommended to use the night mode option in apps, mode that turns everything red, frequencies that have less of an impact on night vision loss.
MATERIALS
What we can see: The stars we can see with the naked eye are very few compared to all those in our galaxy, they are so far away that very little light reach us.
What use the professionals: That’s why to see the deep space the astronomers use giant eyes, capable of collecting more light than the human pupil or by leaving them open for a long time to accumulate more light (increasing the exposure time)
We don't need that: You don’t need that expensive materials, we can achieve amazing things using binoculars, it lenses will capture more light and you’ll be able to see the sky more brightly.
WHAT TO SEE
Stars and Galaxies: The stars are the most abundant objects in the sky, among so many stars, there are patches of diffuse light, these are entire galaxies containing millions of stars that shine from so far away that individual stars cannot be seen, instead, what reaches us is the combined light from all of them at once.
Nebulae: Between all these stars are nebulae, clouds of dust and gas, they appear as irregular, diffuse clouds of whitish and grayish hues, the problem is that the light is spread out over their entire extent, they are faint and lack contrast, so from a city, binoculars are absolutely necessary.
Milky way: In the sky, there’s an area with a very high concentration of stars that looks like a diffuse band stretching from one side to the other, this is our own galaxy, the Milky Way, seemn from inside itself, what we see is the accumulated light from stars, gas, and dust, and since we’re inside it, in one of it’s spiral arms, we see it concentrated in a strip of the sky.
Clusters: The star clusters consist of hundreds to thousands of stars concentrated in a relatively small area of the sky.
An open cluster has fewer stars that are more widely scattered, while a globular cluster has stars that are more tightly grouped, (A tip for viewing them is to use your peripheral vision: instead of looking directly at them, look slightly to the side. They’ll appear a little out of focus but with much more detail)
Planets: Planets are identical in shape to stars; they are colored points that shine more or less brightly, depending on the planet, There are five visible planets, and the only way to tell them apart from stars is by their location and how they shine.