Lab Report
Lab Report 3 In this lab, we will take a trip to the planetarium lab and will learn about Right ascension and declination, and altitude and zenith. After looking at the different points shown, we will log the altitude and zenith in the chart in our lab manual. Now we will look at the same points and label the right ascension and declination. Then we will learn about the easiest way to locate the star Polaris. As we started the first program, we answered a few questions to make sure we knew the general idea of stars.
Then we labeled the altitude and azimuth of five objects. Aldebran had a altitude of 54o and an azimuth of 203o. Betelgeuse had an altitude of 47o and an azimuth of 203o. Castor had an altitude of 62o and an azimuth 118o. Deneb had an altitude of 13o and an azimuth of 328o.
Elnath had an altitude of 68o and an azimuth of 184o. After that, we looked at the right ascension and declination (RA and DEC). Aldebran had a RA of 4. 6 hours and a DEC of 16o. Elnath had an RA of 5.
3 hours and a DEC of 28o. Betelgeuse had an RA of 5. hours and a DEC of 8o. Castor had an RA of 7. 6 hours and a DEC of 32o. Deneb had an RA of 20.
7 hours and a DEC of 46o. Finally we looked at the Big Dipper and the Cassopia to find the star Polaris. This lab was super cool, I loved it. The planetarium was great way to learn more about the different constellations and stars in the sky. I never knew that Polaris was so close to the Big Dipper. Finding the all the right ascensions and declinations of the objects were fairly easy and felt like I learned to do it pretty easily now.