
                    Astronomy For Absolute Beginners

                                Part One

     Before  I  begin  I'd  just  like to point out that this is an
     article on ASTRONOMY, not astrology.  Therefore I  am  writing
     about the science of the stars, not the fiction of prediction,
     Patrick Moore as opposed to Russell Grant.

     My  first article is written to answer some of the questions I
     have been asked by complete novices of astronomy.

     Go out of doors on a dark cloudless night and look up.   Those
     little  points  of light which you can see are stars.  You can
     see a star in the daytime sky too, it is the  Sun.   The  only
     reason that the Sun appears so different to the other stars is
     that  it is many thousands of times closer to us, and so has a
     far greater effect on our lives.  The Sun and other stars like
     it produce light and heat from within themselves by a  process
     called nuclear fusion.

     Going  back  to  our  dark,  cloudless night, if you are lucky
     enough to get these conditions over a few nights  and  you  go
     out  at about the same time each night you may notice that one
     or two of the stars appear to have moved in relation to  those
     around  them.   These  moving  stars  are not stars at all but
     planets , like the Earth.  Incidentally, planet is  Greek  for
     wandering  star.   Planets  don't  produce their own light and
     heat, they are only visible because  they  reflect  the  light
     from  their  nearest star, in the case of the planets which we
     see, this is the Sun.

     Of course the object which is brightest and most prominent  in
     the  night  sky is the Moon.  The Earth is not the only planet
     which has a moon. Moons,like planets, shine only by  reflected
     light,  what  makes  them  moons  is  that  they travel around
     (orbit) a planet, whereas planets orbit stars.

     The method of recognising planets which I have  just  outlined
     is,  of  course,  rather a time consuming procedure, and quite
     difficult to carry out especially if you are not familiar with
     the way the sky should look.

     Even professional astronomers need help  in  remembering  what
     the  sky looks like and also some way of refering to different
     parts of the sky so that they can tell  each  other  where  to
     look  for  things.   To  do this astronomers divide the sky up
     into eighty-eight sections called  constellations,  these  are
     groups of stars which appear to be close together as seen from
     the Earth ( although in reality they need not be associated in
     any way).

     Most  constellations  are named after animals or characters in
     greek mythology, although in  the  southern  hemisphere  where
     some  constellations  were  first  discovered  in the far more
     recent days of Captain Cooks voyages they are named after more
     modern items such as the microscope, clock and telescope.

     There are other ways of giving a star or planets  location  in
     the sky, but for a beginner the constellations are the easiest
     to use, so in my next article I will begin to introduce you to
     a  few  constellations,  these  will be the ones I refer to as
     signposts, because they are easy to locate in the sky and from
     them many other constellations can be found.

     Of course there are many other interesting things to be  found
     in  the  night sky, such as comets, galaxies and nebulae, more
     about which I will say in later articles as each are worthy of
     space to themselves. (Pun intended!)

     In the interests of STUNN!s aims I will finally  suggest  this
     -  don't  buy a telescope or binoculars until you are at least
     partly familiar with naked eye astronomy.  There is a  lot  to
     discover  without making any financial investment, and despite
     what you may think a telescope might not be the best thing  to
     buy  anyway.   If you do feel that you want to get involved in
     astronomy further without waiting  for  my  next  article  the
     books  which  I  recommend for beginners are as follows - "The
     Observers Book of Astronomy", "The I-Spy  Book  of  Astronomy"
     and "The Ladybird book of Astronomy".  Don't laugh at the last
     two  suggestions,  I  am  serious,  they  do give a good basic
     coverage which is suitable for adults as well  as  children  -
     and whats more they're cheap!

     I  hope  you  have  found  this interesting and useful, if you
     have any comments to make, please send  them  to  the  editors
     address,  I'm  sure  he'll take great pleasure in passing them
     on.

                           Jem Prout 6/7/92.


                                 Ends.

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