Lesson Plan

Track the Moon

Students' Assignment

This assignment was developed by

Mike Richard of Weymouth (MA) High School

Introducing the MicroObservatory Telescopes...

Annie, Ben, and Ed:

Before doing this exercise, it is important that you become familiar with the MicroObservatory Telescopes. Please explore and get to know the telescope control center in the MicroObservatory site. You will need to know how to access each of the telescopes, and understand the importance of checking the weather before requesting your images.

If you are new to MicroObservatory, please click here to check out the MicroObservatory telescope control center.

Part One...

Data Collection:

Over the next four to five weeks you will put together a collection of lunar images showing the moon in its various phases. Your team's goal is to acquire a set of your best lunar images. As you collect these images be sure to learn the names of the lunar phases you have collected.

Part Two...

Image Processing:

As you collect images of the Moon, you are to take some of them into the image processing program, NIH Image, and see what you can do to improve the quality of the image you collected from the telescope. When you have a processed image that you like be sure to save it for your final report. Whenever you save an image that you have changed be sure to change its name as you save it or you will lose the original image that you took with the telescope.

One of the images your team must work with will be the image that is as close to a full Moon as your team gets. Using the tools provided in NIH Image, perform the following tasks on this image:

  • Create your team's "most fantastic" false color image and save it.
  • Locate Mare Crisium and calculate its diameter in kilometers. (Reminder: You must remember to "set the scale" in order to take accurate measurements).
  • Locate Mare Tranquillitatis and calculate its perimeter.
  • Locate Crater Copernicus and Crater Tycho and calculate the distance between them.
  • Calculate the surface area of all the maria visible in your team's image.
  • Calculate the surface area of all the highlands in your team's image.
  • Calculate the percentage of the Moon's surface that is covered by maria.
  • Using NIH Image, label some of the mare, craters, and mountain ranges that you have explored, and save this image.

Part Three...

Lunar Geology:

Using any resources available to you, research and write a description of the geology of the Moon that is visible in one of your telescope images.

Part Four...

Assessment:

Each team will prepare and submit a Research Team Report. The report should include:

  • A sampling of your collection of original lunar images showing the Moon in its various phases along with their Image Info files saved to a MicroObservatory Moon Project folder on your computer. The file name for each of your images should be changed to include the MoonÕs phase name. For example, Waxing Gibbous 2. Make sure you also change the Image Info file name to match the image file name. Include a minimum of five of your best telescope images in this section.
  • At least three of the processed images that you saved while doing the first section of Part 2, including an exact description of the steps you took in processing each of these images.
  • All the images and answers you team got in Part 2 while working with your full Moon image.
  • The description of the geology of the Moon that is visible in one of your telescope images (see Part 3). Also, include the image you used.
  • Your research team log book

    • Your completed Research Team Report should be located in a folder, on your computer, called MO Moon Project.

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