FW: FAQ Lab Assignment?
Stephen Thompson (SThompson@esiusa.com)
Fri, 06 Sep 96 11:50:00 PDT
Observing the bright tumblers is indeed a terrific project for beginners.
Even though the old hands are doing some really cool work with these
objects, simpler projects can be very instructive to the person doing the
observing. Taking the list of bright Zenit boosters and measuring each of
their flash periods (even crudely) would make a great science fair project.
A graph of current flash period vs year of launch would produce a very
impressive plot showing the gradual increase in period with time. This
graph would of course contain various kinds of scatter in the data, which
would be the jumping off point for more sophisticated projects. Over a
period of years, even a casual observer could watch the bright, fast
tumblers of 1996 slowly slide down and across the graph. A good final exam
question for Astronomy 101 would be to compare and contrast the 'Tumbling
Booster Slowdown Graph' with the 'Hertzpsrung-Russell Diagram' of stellar
evolution.
Stephen
SThompson@esiusa.com
Tallahasee FL 30.5N 84W