Lab 4 Earth's Orbital Motion F21 (5) - Copy
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Geography
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Apr 3, 2024
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Earth's Orbital Motion and Seasons Student Name: __________________________
Exercise Activities
Step 1. Start Stellarium. It should be in the default configuration you setup in the Using Stellarium exercise. You should be viewing to your South and set the program to full
screen.
Bring up the Location Window and make you location Fort Worth, Texas, USA. On the same window, enable
custom time zone and enable daylight savings time
on the location window.
Bring up the Date/Time Window and set the time for 13:32:00 local time on 2010/3/21. This will be close to the March Equinox. Move the Date/Time Window to the upper right corner and leave it open.
Open the Sky/View Options Window and under the "Sky" heading, set the value for "Projection" to "Perspective". Set you view to the South with a FOV of about 100° on the main Stellarium page.
Turn off the Equatorial grid off and turn on the Azimuthal grid and turn the atmosphere off.
Click on the Sun, but do not center it. Instead, drag the horizon down close to the bottom of the screen.
Step 2. Let's examine the change in the maximum angle of the Sun from the horizon at each of the solstices and equinoxes.
While watching the movement of the Sun and the Sun's data in the upper left of the screen:
Question 1: What is the Altitude of the Sun?. The altitude is in the list of information about the sun. There is a row labeled “Az/Alt”. For example, “Az/Alt 147°10'1.2"/57°40'1.2” The second number shown (57°40'1.2") is the altitude. It is always a number less than
90 degrees and is not negative. ____+55_____° ___10____' ____07.9_____" Move the month to June (2010/6/21). Question 2: What is the Altitude of the Sun on this date/time? ____+78_____° __10_____' ____53.2_____" Move the month to September (2010/9/21). Question 3: What is the Altitude of the Sun on this date/time?. ____+55_____° ___31____' ___04.5______" Move the month to December (2010/12/21). Also, change the time to 12:32:00 (to compensate for the change from Daylight Savings time to Standard time) Question 4: What is the Altitude of the Sun on this date/time? ____+31_____° ___30____' ____49.2_____" Convert these altitudes to decimal degrees, place the answers in the first blank column of Table 1. Please look at the provided document for this lab in eLearn on how to do this conversion.
Calculate the differences in altitudes between the dates shown under “Difference”. Fill in the blank (white) spaces in the table below with those three calculations. Table 1. Fill in blank spaces.
Date
Decimal Deg.
Difference 6/21 -3/21 Difference
6/21 -9/21 Difference
9/21 - 12/21
3/21
55.18
6/21
78.31
23.13
9/21
55.52
22.79
12/21
31.63
23.89
Question 5: What is the average change
in the Altitude? (average the absolute value of the three differences
you calculated Table 1.) _______23.27___________(Decimal Degrees) Question 6: What would you expect the average to be? Make sure that you read the
instructions to this lab before answering. ________23.5__________(Decimal Degrees) Question 7: What would explain the differences in your average and the value you expected? _______________
23.27 decimal degrees, slightly below the expected average of 23.5 decimal degrees, with differences potentially stemming from variations in terrain elevation_____________________________________ ____________________________________________________
Step 3.
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