LAB 04 - Stellar Properties

LAB 04 - Stellar Properties

In this week's lab, you are going to visit the Online Planetarium at https://in-the-sky.org/skymap.php to collect some information about a selection of stars.  The following document provides instructions regarding using the online planetarium and finding the information needed to complete this lab:   USING THE ONLINE PLANETARIUM.pdf

The following video provides some instruction regarding this lab:

For each of the stars in the worksheet, you are going to find the star's constellation, apparent magnitude, absolute magnitude, distance (in light-years), and B-V color magnitude. 

The B-V color magnitude is a number that is obtained by measuring the star's apparent magnitude through a blue light filter, then through a visible light filter, then subtracting the values.  The B-V color index (as it is often called) is another way to represent the luminosity and color of the star.  You will use the B-V number to determine the color of each star using the table below.

For example, let's say that the bright star Navarro has a B-V color index of 1.58.  Looking at the table, we see that 1.15 is Orange and 1.64 is Red.  Since 1.58 is very close to 1.64, then Navarro must be a red star.