Since the sky is above our heads, your star chart is designed to be held overhead when you read it. As the night progresses, this little dome turns so that the stars seem to rise in the east and set in the west. It helps to think of the sky as a dome around the Earth upon which stars and planets reside. We developed an in-depth guide to the celestial coordinate system, if you’d like to learn more detail. The celestial equator mirrors Earth’s equator and the north and south celestial poles are directly above those on Earth. They are called right ascension and declination respectively. The reference frames we use on star charts are equivalent to longitude and latitude used on maps of the earth. Likewise, locating objects in the night sky requires a reference frame for astronomers to navigate. Wouldn’t it be so much easier if you were given exact coordinates, that AZ is 34° North and 111° West? The state can now be located in a jiffy. Let’s say that you wish to locate Arizona on a map, but you only know that it is somewhere in the bottom left in the US. The Milky Way is often shown too, either as an outline or a slightly grayed out area.Ī Sky & Telescope Star Map Night Sky Coordinatesīefore we get into the details of reading star charts, it’s helpful to understand a little bit about night sky coordinates. Since not every night sky object is present here, astronomers use these brighter objects as references for star hopping to fainter ones. In addition to dots, there are gray circles that refer to star clusters and ovals to galaxies. The size of the dot reflects the brightness of the star, the bigger the dot, the brighter the star. Stars are represented as black dots on a white background, which makes it easier to read when observing at night. It’s similar to a planisphere but they have different uses. Normally, a star chart only shows what’s visible to the naked eye under dark skies. It represents the stellar dome with only the brightest stars and objects and the constellations. Similar to how we use terrestrial maps to find destinations on Earth, a star chart is a map of the night sky and one’s guide to navigating the stars. Things to Remember and Other Helpful Tips.
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