| Practical Lesson 3 & 4: Asteroids, Supernovae and Exoplanets |
 Asteroids Discovery It is always best to begin your asteroid hunting experiences by observing known objects. In this practical, we will attempt to re-discover a known asteroid. First, we will point the telescope to a known asteroid path and take a series of 4 images of the same field, 10 to 15 minutes apart. Next, we will stack and align the 4 images to create an animated movie. By playing the animated movie in a loop, we hope to re-discover the asteroid we are hunting for! Image Credit: CAZILHAC Robert (http://astrosurf.com/pixiel/animationXP14wikipedia.htm) / CC BY-SA 3.0 |
NGC 3861
Image archive from SDDS
NGC 3861
Image taken on 8 Mar 2014
Supernovae Discovery
Among all the objects an amateur astronomer can discover in the night sky, novae and supernovae are among the most difficult one.
Finding novae and supernovae require persistent efforts and certain element of luck!
Fortunately, there are online databases which keep a good record of the recently discovered novae and supernovae.
To practice our first supernova discovery, we will refer to the online database in IAU (International Astronomical Union) website.
To re-discover the supernova ourselves, we will attempt to take an image of the latest discovered supernova and compare it with a reference image from DDS (Digital Sky Survey) taken sometime ago before the supernova occurred.
Image Credit: Sloan Digital Sky Survey
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Exoplanets Discovery The best way to practice the discovery of exoplanet using transit method is by observing known transits. One of the best online catalog for known transits is provided by NASA Exoplanet Archive. For a start, we will pick an exoplanet which is easier to detect. An exoplanet which is relatively big (about the size of Jupiter) and orbit around its star in a shorter orbital period (days) would be a lot easier to discover than a small exoplanet that takes year to orbit it star (like our Earth!). Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI) |
Page background: Image Credit: ESO