Question | Answer |
The Bible first mentions constellations in this book | Job |
A stationary, pole like device used to determine the position and motion of the sun by the shadow it casts | gnomon |
A structure in England noted for its huge stones arranged in a roughly circular pattern that some believe may be a solar observatory | stonehenge |
The first type of telescope invented; uses lenses; type built by Galileo | refractor |
The problem with refractor telescopes; distortion in color | chromatic aberration |
Type of telescope that uses mirrors to collect incoming light; type built by Newton | reflector |
Type of telescope that uses both lenses and mirrors to gather light; Schmidt Cassegranian telescope | composite |
Most common nonoptical telescope; detects wavelengths other than visible light | radio |
The ability to bring out details in an image | resolution |
Modern advances in telescope design includes | honeycomb mirrors, segmented mirrors, computer-controlled mirror actuators |
Types of telescope mounts | altazimuth, equatorial or German, Dobsonian |
A type of telescope mount that allows the viewer to follow a star with only one telescope motion | equatorial or German |
Number of constellations | 88 |
The brightest star in a constellation is known by its | Greek letter Alpha and Latin Name |
Brighter stars have this mathematical symbol | - |
Fainter dimmer stars have this mathematical symbol | + |
The distance that light travels in one year; equals 5.9 trillion miles | light year |
Besides a stars apparent magnitude, its ___ also affects its brightness | distance |
5 ways to classify stars | brightness, distance, motion, color, size |
instrument found above the earth's atmosphere that has done much to reveal the magnificence of the heavens than any other instrument | Hubble Space telescope |
the plane of the earth's equator projected into the sky | celestial equator |
also known as celestial latitude; angle of an object in the sky from earth | declination or DEC |
Used in finding a star's location using celestial coordinates | declination, celestial equator, and right ascension |
A star's real movement across the sky; what we see; first detected by Edmund Halley | proper motion |
star movement directly toward or away from us | radial motion |
a star that changes in brightness because it expands and contracts regularly; not 2 stars; type of star the Delta Cephei is. | Cepheid variable |
a star that explodes and sometimes leaves behind a neutron star | supernova |
star that sometimes increases many times in brilliance for a period of time then returns to its normal brightness | nova |
another name for a neutron star that gives out strong, rapidly changing radio signals | pulsar |
another name for a neutron star that is not a pulsar; it has extremely strong rotating magnetic fields | magnetar |
Colors of the hottest star to coldest star (in order) | violet, blue, white, yellow, orange, red |
Several stars that have the same motion; either open or globular | star clusters |
a group of millions of stars | galaxy |
the name of our galaxy; a spiral galaxy that contains the Sun (the star that holds this galaxy's greatest apparent magnitude) | Milky Way |
galaxy shapes | spiral, elliptical, irregular, barred spiral |
large, visible mass or cloud of gas & dust; basically just a region filled with gas and/or dust | nebulae |
Nebulae are grouped into either emission, refletion, dark, planetary, or supernova remnants. Which nebulae can be observed when they block the light from more distant stars or nebulae | Dark nebulae |
unusual, distant, rapidly moving objects that do not readily fit into the standard theories of the universe; objects whose true nature has puzzled astronomers | quasars |
He developed the first catalog of nonstellar objects | Charles Messier |
a supposedly extremely dense object that can trap even light | black hole |
Very-hot, blue-white stars; usually have the diameter one-half to four times of Earth | white dwarfs |