find blue, orange, yellow, white and red
stars.
The color of stars sometimes can tell you
about the age of a star and the temperature
that they burn at.
Other stars to look for are multiple stars. Very
often, you can find double (or binary) stars,
stars that are very close together. These
stars orbit each other. What do you notice
about these stars? Are they different colors?
Looking at or near the
Sun
will cause
irreversible
damage to your eye. Do not point this telescope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving.
9
many Saturn has either. At last count, Jupiter
had over 60 moons, and held a small lead
over Saturn. Most of these moons are very
small and can only be seen with very large
telescopes.
Probably the most memorable sight you will
see in your telescope is Saturn. Although you
may not see many features on the surface
of Saturn, its ring structure will steal your
breath away. You will probably be able to see
a black opening in the rings, known as the
Cassini band.
Saturn is not the only planet that has rings,
but it is the only set of rings that can be seen
with a small telescope. Jupiter’s rings cannot
be seen from Earth at all—the Voyager
spacecraft discovered the ring after it passed
Jupiter and looked back at it. It turns out, only
with the sunlight shining through them, can
the rings be seen. Uranus and Neptune also
have faint rings.
Observing beyond the Solar System:
Once you have observed our own system of
planets, it’s time to really travel far from home
and look at stars and other objects.
You can observe thousands of stars with
your telescope. At first, you may think stars
are just pinpoints of light and aren’t very
interesting. But look again. There is much
information that is revealed in stars.
The first thing you will notice is that not all
stars are the same colors. See if you can
Fig. 8
Jupiter and it’s Galilean Moons