Constellations & Planets: The Story of the Night Sky

Do you want to be able to find the constellations and planets in the night sky? This presentation comes with the tricks you need to know. Discover the constellations and planets and become familiar with the night sky’s story.

This Course includes the following great BONUS LESSONS:

• What on Earth is Astronomy?

• Mini-Lesson: Eclipses

• Mini-Lesson: Meteor Showers

• Mini-Lesson: Aurora

• Project Artemis: America Returns to the Moon

Constellations and Planets: The Story of the Night Sky

1. Objective

2. Warm-up activity

3. Our ancestors and the night sky stories

4. Strategies for always knowing where the planets are in the sky

5. The Dipper and Orion

6. The constellations and why they change seasonally

7. The celestial sphere

8. Perspective

9. Cassiopeia

10. Star movements

11. Longitude and latitude

12. Light pollution

13. Plane of the ecliptic

14. Comparing star patterns and constellations

15. Pointer stars

16. The pole star (North Star)

17. Finding the Andromeda Galaxy using pointer stars

18. The Pleiades

19. Memorizing the constellations by using stories

20. The Milky Way Galaxy in the sky

21. Finding the planets: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn in the sky

22. Retrograde motion

23. Test questions

24. Cross-curricular activities

My name is Tony Ceraso and I will be your instructor. I sometimes run the planetarium and have written curriculum for the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. I have also written curriculum for NASA’s school visitation program and teach on the college level in NJ.

My goal is for you to thoroughly enjoy this lesson. I love astronomy and I want nothing more out of our time together than for you to have a greater appreciation for the universe through the understanding of this material. Besides the lesson I’m going to preview for you now, the course includes warm up activities, test questions, and cross-curricular activities for you to download as a supplement.