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Welcome again to our monthly newsletter with features on exciting celestial events, product reviews, tips & tricks, and a monthly sky calendar. We hope you enjoy it!

• Fun with Analemmas
  Tracing shapes in the sky with Brenda M. Shaw.
     
• Educator's Corner: Precession
  Combine the Earth’s axial tilt with gravitational forces exerted by the Sun and Moon and you get... wobble!
     
• Observing the Moon as an Astronomy Exercise
  Sounds simple, but students can find it a challenging exercise.
     
• Special DOUBLE Offer!!
  Kids on their way back to school? Here's how you can give them an advantage in Earth Sciences...
     
• Starry Night® File of the Month
  Solar System Boundaries.
     
• Constellation in Focus: Cygnus
  Sometimes referred as Northern Cross, this beautiful constellation carries several observing jewels across the summer nighttime sky.
     

If you go out every day at the same time, and measure the altitude and azimuth of the Sun, you will find after a year that the Sun has returned to the position it was in when you started your measurements. It will also have traced out a shape or a pattern, known as an analemma, in the sky.

Since you probably can't see the Sun every single day from where you live (e.g. because of weather), you can use Starry Night to make an analemma. You don't have to go outside, and it'll only take a few minutes rather than a year! Here's how:

To read the rest of this article, click here.

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Last time, we learned that the Sun reached its maximum northern declination around June 21 ushering in summer in the northern hemisphere. The northern latitude where the Sun is directly overhead at noon defines a great circle at about 23.5 º N known as the Tropic of Cancer.

But why “Cancer” when the Sun is actually in the constellation Taurus?

Summer Solstice 2010 AD

To read the rest of this article, click here.

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Judging by the number of questions I see on Yahoo! Answers about this, it must be a popular exercise for teachers to assign their students. Properly implemented, it can teach students a great deal about the motions of the Moon and also the challenges of astronomical observation and research.

The idea is to observe and record the appearance and position of the Moon over a complete lunar cycle. This sounds simple, but students can find it a challenging exercise.

I have a suspicion that quite a few teachers assign the exercise without ever having tried it themselves, and are unaware of the difficulties which even a student with the best intentions may run into. So I urge teachers to try the exercise with your students.

Right at the outset, it seems that quite a few students will forget they have to do this project and, a month later, they will be on the internet frantically looking for pictures of the Moon for every night. So it’s important to remind them at some point every day, preferably at the end of the school day.

To read the rest of this article, click here.

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Give your kids an advantage! When you refer their teacher to our educational solutions, the school will receive 10% off their purchase and you'll receive 15% off your next selection at the Starry Night Store!

Here's how it works:

1. Tell your school's science teacher or curriculum decision maker about Starry Night Education or The Layered Earth;
2. Give them coupon code "Back to School 2010!" for their next curriculum purchase;
3. Let us know that you've done so by submitting the school, grade, subject and teacher's name, here;
4. We'll send your discount code to you, immediately;
5. Pick out your next, great Starry Night product!

Let us know if you've any questions, and thanks again

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Solar System Boundaries

• SolarSystemBoundaries.snf.zip

Press the Decrease Elevation button to fly through various solar system boundary layers. To identify the various boundary layers by color, click on the contextual menu button of the Sun in the Find pane and select Distance Spheres.

Pedro Braganca
Education & Content Director
Starry Night® Education

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NGC 6960 & NGC 6992, the West and East Veil Nebulas, are part of the Cygnus loop, the remains of a supernova that exploded over 100,000 years ago. Two other sections, NGC 6995 and 6979 are close by.

M29 is an unimpressive open cluster, notable only in that it was one of the original discoveries of Charles Messier.

NGC 6819 is a small open cluster with about two dozen stars from 10th to 12th magnitude within a 5' circle. Its discovery in 1784 is attributed to Caroline Herschel.

Deneb, which marks the tail of the swan, is one of the 20 brightest stars in the night sky. Just three degrees away lies NGC 7000, the North American Nebula, so-called because of its obvious shape. This is an active star forming region and quite large, though it's difficult to see without the aid of astrophotography.

M39 is an open cluster, and is a nice binocular object with 30 or so stars spread over its seven lightyear diameter. It's also "pretty close" to Earth, at "just" 800 lightyears.

Finally, NCG 6826, the Blinking Nebula, gets its name from an odd phenomenon: its central star appears to blink on and off when you look toward and away from it quickly.

Sean O'Dwyer
Starry Night® Times Editor

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