Digital Universe Guide - Hayden Planetarium

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32 3. THE MILKY WAY ATLAS You will notice Polaris, the pole star, is right beside the north celestial pole, just where you probably expect it to be. Orion’s belt, three stars in a line, is just below the celestial equator. Ecliptic Coordinates are Based on the Solar System Turn off radec, then turn on ecliptic coordinates group eclip. The ecliptic coordinates are in red and have a brighter line for the “equator.” What is the physical significance of this coordinate system, though? The equator in this coordinate system is called the ecliptic. It is the path the Sun makes in the sky and, therefore, is the plane shared by the Sun and Earth, generally the plane of the Solar System. In this system, we measure an object in ecliptic longitude and latitude. Because ecliptic coordinates describe the Sun’s path in the sky throughout the year, the ecliptic passes through all the zodiacal constellations. If you turn on the radec group once again, you can see the effect of Earth’s obliquity. The obliquity refers to the degree to which Earth is tipped on its axis of rotation. If it weren’t tipped, the ecliptic (bright red line) would coincide exactly with the celestial equator (bright blue line) and the Sun would always be directly over Earth’s equator, resulting in an Earth with no seasonal climate changes. The amount of “tip” can be seen in the angles between these two systems. Find where the celestial equator and the ecliptic cross. The angle between them is 23. ◦ 5. Now look toward either of the poles. The angle between the celestial pole and the ecliptic pole is also 23. ◦ 5. Also, the maximum distance between the ecliptic and the celestial equator is. . . you guessed it, 23. ◦ 5. This number appears many times on Earth’s coordinates too. The angle between the equator and the Tropic of Cancer or Capricorn, the angle between the North Pole and the Arctic Circle, are all 23. ◦ 5. Let’s keep to the sky, though. Galactic Coordinates Trace the Galactic Plane Now turn off the ecliptic and equatorial coordinates and turn on the Galactic coordinates with the galac button. In Galactic coordinates, objects are expressed in terms of Galactic longitude and Galactic latitude, which are measured in degrees. The Galactic equator (bright green line) coincides with the band of the Milky Way in the sky. When you look toward the equator, you are looking right into the disk of the Galaxy. Therefore, when we look to the Galactic poles, we are looking directly out of the disk of our Galaxy. These areas are windows out of the Galaxy—with little gas and dust along these lines of sight, we can see much farther into the <strong>Universe</strong>. Now turn on the ecliptic coordinates and find where the ecliptic meets the Galactic equator. Once you find their crossing, switch to Rotate Fly Mode and rotate the view with the right mouse button such
3.2. MILKY WAY ATLAS TUTORIAL 33 that the Galactic equator is level (parallel to your tabletop). The angle between these two lines demonstrates the inclination of the plane of our Solar System with respect to the Galaxy. At about 62 ◦ , the planets revolve around the Sun steeply inclined to the Galactic disk. Of course, the planetary orbits are so small that they are lost in the Galactic disk along with the Sun, but it is fascinating to think we are not orbiting the Sun in the same plane that we orbit the Galaxy. One often thinks of the plane of the Solar System as a cardinal plane, defining how we think of up and down in space, but now we have a new horizon, the Galactic plane. Tutorial: The Milky Way from Earth Goals: Understand how the band of light in the sky relates to the 3-D picture of the Galaxy. Before starting, turn on: nothing You will be using: gall command, stars, mwVis, alpha command, radec, gc If you’re coming from the previous tour, let’s clear the board. In Partiview’s command line, type the command gall off This command tells Partiview to act on all groups with the off command. Of course, you can use this command to increase the brightness of all groups (gall slum *4) or turn them all red (gall color const 1 0 0) if you desire. The Band of the Milky Way Now turn on the stars and the mwVis groups. The mwVis data group is the band of light across the sky that, for thousands of years, we have called the Milky Way. That band is the disk of our Galaxy, bright toward Sagittarius, dimmer toward Orion. Brighten up the Galaxy by increasing its alpha value. You can either use the Alpha Slider (choose alpha from the Slider Menu) or use the Command Line by entering alpha 0.8, for example. (Recall that the alpha value ranges from 0–1.) Now you see some details that would not normally be seen. The bright clouds and the dark dust lanes reveal themselves when we brighten up the image. Upon scanning the entire band, you will notice a clear distinction between the bright areas toward the center of the Galaxy and the dim regions opposite the center.
Page 1 and 2: The Digital Universe Guide Brian Ab
Page 3 and 4: Contents Contents 3 List of Tables
Page 5 and 6: List of Tables 2.1 Log and Linear F
Page 7 and 8: 1.2. GETTING HELP 7 1.2 Getting Hel
Page 9 and 10: 1.5. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 9 1.5 Acknowle
Page 11 and 12: 2.2. LAUNCHING THE MILKY WAY ATLAS
Page 13 and 14: 2.3. LEARNING TO FLY PARTIVIEW 13 T
Page 15 and 16: 2.3. LEARNING TO FLY PARTIVIEW 15 M
Page 17 and 18: 2.4. PARTIVIEW’S USER INTERFACE 1
Page 23 and 24: 2.5. DIGITAL UNIVERSE FILES 23 File
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3.3. MILKY WAY DATA GROUPS 87 marke
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3.3. MILKY WAY DATA GROUPS 89 brigh
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3.3. MILKY WAY DATA GROUPS 91 3.3.1
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3.3. MILKY WAY DATA GROUPS 95 old.
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3.3. MILKY WAY DATA GROUPS 97 centi
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3.3. MILKY WAY DATA GROUPS 99 3.3.1
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3.3. MILKY WAY DATA GROUPS 101 3.3.
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3.3. MILKY WAY DATA GROUPS 103 heat
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3.3. MILKY WAY DATA GROUPS 107 righ
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3.3. MILKY WAY DATA GROUPS 121 Othe
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3.3. MILKY WAY DATA GROUPS 141 this
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3.3. MILKY WAY DATA GROUPS 143 Not
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4 The Extragalactic Atlas The word
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4.1. EXTRAGALACTIC ATLAS OVERVIEW 1
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4.2. EXTRAGALACTIC ATLAS TUTORIAL 1
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4.3. EXTRAGALACTIC DATA GROUPS 169
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4.4. OPTIMIZING THE EXTRAGALACTIC A
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Appendix A Light-Travel Time and Di
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Appendix B Parallax and Distance On
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absolute magnitude M, can be calcul
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discovered that there was a linear
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Appendix D Electromagnetic Spectrum
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Appendix E Constants and Units In a
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Metric Prefixes These prefixes are
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INDEX 221 center command, 50, 61 cl
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INDEX 223 Earth’s radio signals,
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INDEX 225 irregular galaxy, 147, 17
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INDEX 227 entering, 21 every, 206 j
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INDEX 229 stellar distance uncertai
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Digital Universe Guide - Hayden Planetarium

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