ASTRONOMY 130 Links

Astronomical Sky Software

Stellarium (free planetarium software for Mac, PC, linux); also available on PCs 61-68 at the ITS computer labs at Hamilton CLIC Lab (1st floor). See the map of ITS lab locations and hours.
Sky Chart III (free Mac, PC)
Starry Night (commercial software)

Astronomical Time and Coordinate Systems

Sun/Moon Rise/Set/Phases from The Directorate of Time of the U.S. Naval Observatory. The frames version link of the latter site allows you to run active digital clocks which update in Universal Time.
New Star Position Applet to see how stars move over the course of the night
New Celestial Pole Applet to see how the position of the poles and your horizon change with latitude
A Walk Through Time Ancient Calendars and Early timekeeping.

The Night Sky

Inconstant Moon maps, photos, and animations. Click on a calendar date to show details of moon for that night.
The Animated Virtual Planetarium
The Constellations and their Stars and wide-field photos of the constellations by Akira Fuji
Watch the Sky Rotate (534K) time-lapse sequence viewing the sky over Kitt Peak Observatory for a full night
Your Sky generate your own starcharts for any time or locations. For more details, see general instructions
Sky & Telescopes's Interactive Sky Chart
The day night break for the Earth(3.52Mb) - Do not load unless you have a fast connection [e.g., from a University site] A A
The motions of the Sun Java applets.
EclipseHome Page
To make your own Sky Charts on a PC (Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP) Cartes du Ciel freeware program is recommended
A good description of the night sky, with explanation of the celestial sphere, motions of the Sun and Moon, and other phenomena can be found at Nick Strobel's Astronomy Notes on the Night Sky.

Archaeoastronomy

Mayan Astronomy
Center for Archaeoastronomy
Clive Ruggles' Archaeology Resource
Solstice Project - Sun Dagger
Traditions of the Sun NASA podcasts about Chaco Canyon (iTunes)
NASA Traditions of the Sun -- Ancient Observatories
BBC In Our Time March 1, 2007 podcast about the history of optics in astronomy (iTunes) -- available for 1 week after broadcast. See the In Our Time web site for more details.
British Museum Site on Mesopotamia see, in particular, the information on the astronomers of Babylon and explore deciphered astronomical tablets
Babylonian Mathematics
Stars over Ancient Babylon website with streaming QuickTime movie (web link at right)
British Museum Site on Ancient Egypt explore the alignments of the passages in the Great Pyramid
The BBC's Ancient Egyptians site is another excellent place to find information on how the great pyramid was built. Their Pyramid Builder Game shows an animation of how the pyramids were aligned.
References to pyramid construction in the writings of Herodotus. You can also read the original text online at The Herodotus Project under Book 2 of the The Inquiries.
Hong Kong Science Museum Exhibition on Ancient Chinese Astronomy
Newgrange Megalithic Site
Winter Solstice at Newgrange Real Player streaming video
Mayas, Aztecs and Incas Real Player and Windows Media streaming videos and Web links
Frederick Catherwood's illustrations of Mayan ruins coupled with the accounts of John Lloyd Stephens of two trips of exploration from 1839-1841 generated enormous popular interest. See some examples of his lithographs. Stephens' work set the basis for Archaeology of the Americas.
Breaking the Maya Code quicktime video on decoding the Palenque glyphs
Clickable tour of the Dresden Codex from the Pomona College web site. (This site is sometimes offline).

Polynesian Navigation

Wayfinders a Pacific odyssey (02998161) (60 min, 1999) and Stars across a sea of time: the Hokule'a lives on (01148596) (60 min, 1990), VHS videos available in Wong Audio-Video Collection).
Non-instrument navigation and the star compass
Polynesian Voyaging Society weblog about 2007 voyages
Star Compass and sky charts web pages
PVS pages on Navigation in the Western Pacific and The Polynesian Voyaging Society home page

Esther M. Hu http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/faculty/hu/astr130_links.html
(hu@ifa.hawa ii.edu)
Last Revision : August 24, 2009

Astronomy 130

Links