Astronomy 101 - Understanding the Essentials | Part One

Astronomy is a word. I'm sure you've heard it before. Or least seen it somewhere. 

It's not rocket science.

No I'm serious.

You won't be able to launch a rocket with just astronomy.

Astronomy is rather like a photo album. You can flip through pictures, but there's always a story behind each image. And all those stories together, no matter how many, will still never truly show you the biggest picture.

I say biggest picture because you would have already gotten a bigger picture while listening to the other stories.

In astronomy, if all you want is to enjoy the night sky, provided it's dark, and show off your knowledge to your friends, provided they agree to stand out in the dark and look at a bunch of stars, you just need know the names of a few constellations. Maybe throw in a few of the basics to make them stop and ask you, "What do you mean by that!?"

The above sentences make sense.

Understanding the sentences is not a basic you need to know in astronomy.

Read it again, you'll get it.

Well, let's get started. 

With the basics. Constellations come later.

The basics include learning about altitude and azimuth, two of the more important aspects of basic astronomy. Plus, you'll learn to measure the sky with just your hands and figure directions out just by looking up. Sounds exciting, am I right?

To learn to be a doctor (this is highly relevant), one starts of by learning other, complicated, names of things that already have names and do not require translation for other, normal, people.

This is still an article about astronomy.

Similarly, astronomy requires learning the other names of things you already know the names of. Don't worry, there aren't a lot, so you don't need to wonder why on earth you know all of this since you aren't planning on becoming a doctor anyway (oops, astronomer).

I apologize to the doctors reading this.

Anyway, let's actually begin.

First and foremost is azimuth.

Fancy names remember?

Azimuth simply means direction.

The four main directions (north, east, west and south) just aren't enough for navigation because of the simple reason that the area they encompass is too big. They are therefore divided into other directions. For example, northeast and southwest. To make things easier, they are further sub-divided into north-northeast, west south-west, etc. Also, though you likely won’t need to (unless you actually are plotting to be an astronomer), you can go a step further and say “0 degrees” instead of “north,” “90 degrees” for “east,” and so on. This is going to make you sound like a compass, and anyone fortunate enough to be listening to you will nod solemnly and wonder if you aren't making it all up. 

Now, instead of telling someone that the moon is on top of that weirdly shaped tree, tell them that the moon is in the northeastern sky.

(I'll come to how you can find north without a compass later)

Oh.

We seem to have encountered a problem.

The thing is, the sky refuses to be convenient for us. You see, it extends all around in every direction (I refuse to say azimuth) and that includes up.

Things get a little tricky once up gets involved.

To combat this, we introduce another element, altitude, to make things easier (and harder to remember).

Altitude is also a word you must have already heard.

It simply means the height (of an object) from the ground, 90 degrees being overhead.

So now, you're going to tell your friends that the moon is 45 degrees altitude and 93 degrees azimuth. But since measuring these require some degree of precision, so use the actual names (north, south, etc.) instead of azimuth. As for altitude, I'll drop a more or less accurate method in the next part of this blog.

Of course, there are other things to know, but these are enough for our purpose (impressing other people).

With these two basics, you will be able to successfully gain your friends' respect as an astronomer.

Did I mention you can confuse them even more?

(What I have mentioned is measuring the sky with your hands and telling directions by looking up - )

For that, check the next part of this blog.

(- you'll find these as well in there.)

See you there!

P.S. If you're leaving a comment, don't forget to sign your name. It's always good to know who said what... No reason why.

(What? You read my last blog? Pretend you didn't see the postscript there :) )