Week 2: Planisphere

Objectives

By the end of this lesson, you will have

• made a simple planisphere
• used your planisphere to predict the appearance of the night sky for a given time and date in the year
• used your planisphere to estimate the rise and set times for a star on a given date in the year
• used your planisphere to estimate the time of sunrise and sunset for a given day in the year

Web Links

Planisphere templates

Download your planisphere base and a top plate for 50 North here. Thanks to M. S. Petersen for producing these templates.

How to use a planisphere (Sky and Telescope)

Step by step instructions on how to use the planisphere you have made.

The Celestial Sphere - online lessons

This set of Web pages from Indiana University provides a nice introduction to the Celestial Sphere and defines all the coordinate systems. Quite painless and useful.

Activity

It's Blue Peter time! In your manual are printouts of the base plate (paper) and top plate (transparent acetate) for the planisphere. Cut them out around the circles and join the two discs together with the paper fastener.

Read the how to use a planisphere page from Sky and Telescope and then use your planisphere to see what the night sky looks like for tonight at around 8pm.

When does Altair rise and set? Can you work out how to use the planisphere to estimate the rise and set times?

You are now ready to have a go at activity 2.

Keith Burnett
Last modified: 10th June 02