Did you enjoy drawing the objects? You have now learned a little about what astronomy was like in my time. If you have a parent that owns a telescope, you can try doing astronomy just like I did. Look through the telescope’s eyepiece, and draw what you see. Try it!
Part of the SDSS’s camera
Today, astronomers rarely look through telescopes with their eyes. They almost always use a camera to record the data they want.
The SDSS telescope pictures you saw were taken with a large digital camera. The camera is shown to the right.
Question 8: Why do you think it is better to use a camera to take pictures of objects through a telescope instead of trying to draw what you see?
If you or your school has a scanner, try scanning your pictures into a computer. You can then “invert the colors” to make all the black areas white and the white areas black. If you did your drawing on a white paper, now you will have a black sky! To learn how to invert colors, see the Help menu of your photo editing program.
Clip art licensed from the Clip Art Gallery on DiscoverySchool.com
Project designed by Robert Sparks and Chris Stoughton
Questions? Comments? Suggestions? E-mail the Voyages help desk.