The Night Sky Live Project PI: Robert J. Nemiroff & The Night Sky Live Collaboration.
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Transcript of The Night Sky Live Project PI: Robert J. Nemiroff & The Night Sky Live Collaboration.
Web address: http://NightSkyLive.net People:
Faculty: Noah Bosch (Tel Aviv U.), Wellesley Pereira (Michigan Tech), J. Bruce Rafert (Clemson), John Oliver (Florida), Chris Impey (Arizona)Graduate students: Lior Shamir (MTU), Shet Tilvi (MTU)Undergraduate students (MTU): Dan Cordell, Vic Muzzin, Matt Merlo
The Night Sky Live Project
Three General Objectives
Primary ScienceTemporal monitoring and archiving of entire visible sky down to visual magnitude 6. Search for meteors, unusual stellar variability, GRB OTs, comet variability, novae, supernovae, etc.
Support ScienceInstantaneous cloud monitors, archival cloud monitors, generate real-time all-sky opacity and skyglow maps
Education / OutreachShow your class last night’s (real) sky, archival skies, monitor meteor showers in real time, show educational sky movies, run educational modules
The Night Sky Live Project
CONCAM Locations
The Night Sky Live Project
Ten NSL nodes are currently deployed -- more are being built
Easy & Inexpensive
Hardware: computerSoftware: web browserCost: freeNight sky coverage
angular: nearly completetime: always on 24/7
Image Cadence: 3m56sImage Depth: approximately human
The Night Sky Live Project
Real Time Viewing allows...
Demonstrate what is visible from different parts of Earth right now
where is it: daytime, nighttime? where are the moon, planets, stars?
MeteorsView meteor showers in progress, during class time
CometsExample: What does Comet Machholz look like right now?
The Night Sky Live Project
Near Real Time Viewing allows…
What did last night’s sky look like?At sunset?At sunrise?Movie: diurnal motion last night, annotated
How has Comet Maccholz changed recently?One month agoYesterday
Any good Geminids meteors caught last month?Toward which constellation do they point?
How was the night sky different last month?
The Night Sky Live Project
Fisheye Images allow...
How parts of the sky relateHow inferior planets hug the horizonZodiacal light viewsTrace back of meteors to radiantComet tales
The Night Sky Live Project
Time Lapse Sky Movies show...
Diurnal motionVariable star changesRetrograde motion of planets
The Night Sky Live Project
Global Coverage allows...
Comparison of the same sky from different locationsAlways a place where it is nighttime to show your class
The Night Sky Live Project
Learning Modules allow...In class collaborative learningHomework
Current modulesDiurnal motion
Variable stars
Modules includeshort hyperlinked lesson with NSL hyperlinks, images
a quiz with answers provided
The Night Sky Live Project
Advanced Undergraduate
Using the photometry tablesTracking star brightness with altitudeTracking variable stars with time
Using the raw FITS imagescomputing raw photometric measures• stars, comets, meteors, satellite glints
finding cosmic rays
What was that?Problem solving with unknown image artifacts
The Night Sky Live Project
Popularity
Already 1000s of page views nightlyAdvertising
Cloud monitor seen by astronomers that also teach Astro 101Unique images featured on APOD, already a resource for teaching Astro 101
Bulletin board fosters discussion
The Night Sky Live Project