Run Stellarium w/ equatorial grid

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Run Stellarium w/ equatorial grid

• Notice the motion of the sun across the sky.

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Indiana Skies

• The efforts at Elkhart Memorial High School to
  observe our nearest star.

Indiana AAPT Spring Meeting 2007 - Rose Hulman,
Room O-159 - 1020 AM
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Indiana Skies

• John B. Taylor
• Elkhart Memorial HS
• 2608 California Road
• Elkhart, IN 46514
• jtaylor_at_elkhart.k12.in.us
• www.elkhart.k12.in.us/jtaylor/mainpageVII.html
• Indiana Skies Daytime Observations of the Sun
• Plagued with cloudy nighttime skies, Memorial
  students are turning to daytime observations of
  our nearest star the sun. Students are finding
  success by making solar observations in a variety
  of ways. One of the first projects, a solar
  telescope project was CAD designed, and assembled
  over multiple years. Currently, the telescope,
  nicknamed, Sola, projects a large image of the
  sun on a screen to allow sunspot observations.
  Students are developing that project, and are
  also working on a new radio telescope through the
  JOVE project. Memorial also has a cosmic ray
  telescope, which adds to the potential to observe
  the sun in three ways.

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It began with night time observations..

• Wednesday night observations
• Problems with Indiana skies
• Many cloudy days
• Light pollution
• Late nights for students, and
• Evening obligations

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What about daytime observations?What about the
sun?

• Kirkwood solar observatory

• How hard could it be to make our own?

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• A rough draft from 1994

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And I said wow!

• CAD rendering by Joshua Ostrom

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And then came the parts

• In 2000, the construction began.

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And then came the parts

• In 2000, the construction began.
• Then continued,

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And then came the parts

• In 2000, the construction began.
• Then continued,
• Then continued,
• And still

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And Sola was born
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Images
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About the same time

• There was this project called Quarknet

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And, we were building Cosmic Ray Telescopes
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Teams
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And we had another way to look at the sun.
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And then last Spring,
At the Spring 2006 AAPT meeting, William Coombs
from Crawfordsville, gave his,Opportunities for
High School Research on a Budget Talk.
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• A well supported project through NASA, JOVE helps
  schools build radio telescopes

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And Jove was born
And Jove was bornMarch 9th, 2007 the first
signal from the sun was heard!
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3 ways to look at the sun, and

• 3 lessons learned about how to involve students
• Save opportunities for those young budding
  scientist (there are many!) and consider starting
  side ventures,
• Connect with an existing group and dive in (with
  students), and
• Grab ideas from colleagues!

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Anyone else know of

• Another good way to observe the sun?

For more information (and to follow our
progress http//www.elkhart.k12.in.us/jtaylor/ma
inpageVII.html