Q: How do we get day and night?
A: The Earth spins on its axis once very 24 hours
Q: What is a lunar month?
A: The Moon orbits the Earth once every 28 days - check out this superb APOD
link
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070902.html
Click on this image for
animations
Test yourself on the Solar System! Click the 7L1 Solar System link above
Partial Solar Eclipse of March
29th 2006
The pictures below were taken from the playground of Great Sankey High
School with a hand-held Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ5.
The sky was heavily overcast during the eclipse so our binocular projection
method was useless.
We did however get a few fleeting glimpses of the eclipse through (rare) gaps in
the clouds.
The second row of thumbnails represent differently cropped versions of the
top row.
0714
0715
0716
0717
0718
0719
0720
0721
Images copyright N Lea-Wilson
Solar Eclipse 1999
A solar eclipse takes place when the Moon blocks our view of the Sun
0464
Lunar phases
Analemma of the
Moon *** APOD July 2005 Shows how the Moon changes night to night
The compilation of 14 images below show most phases of the Moon during May
2005.
Sadly, there were the inevitable cloudy days, including day 14, during the Full
Moon!
0575
0576
For the above two images in slide form click on the Lunar Observations link
above or here
Below, you can find the detailed images which were put together to make the
above compilations.
The first images were taken just 1 day after New Moon. (Equipment: tripod-mounted
Panasonic FZ5 digital camera at 12X zoom)
The second enlarged image is slightly overexposed to try and show
earth-shine: the shadowed face of the Moon dimly lit by light reflected from
Earth.
0593 1-day old Crescent Moon with ghostly Earth-shine just
about visible
0592
0580
0594
0446
0447
0449
0450
0452
0453
0454
0462
0463
0465
0466
0467
0468
0469
0448
0456
0457
Moon and Planets
0455 Gibbous Moon with beautiful Jupiter close by
0578 Crescent Moon with Venus only just visible in lower right
0579 Venus at 12x zoom
0646 Venus and Jupiter conjunction: separated by just 1°
Crescent moon and a passing jet
3D Spinning Earth from e-Chalk *** A useful whiteboard starter activity
3D Spinning Moon from e-Chalk *** Look at the dark side of the Moon!
A Month of the Moon: *** check out what the Moon is doing this month using this tool from the National Schools Observatory
An orbit demonstration from the National Schools Observatory site
Earth and Moon viewer
*** A brilliant way of looking at the Earth and the Moon, from various
satellites etc
View the Earth from above London
View the Moon from Earth
View the night-side of the Moon
The Moon at Perigee and Apogee (Closest and Furthest approach)
The Electric Orrery *** A great way of looking at the planets in their orbits
Sunrise and Sunset times for Great Sankey High School
Nine planets: interactive activities from e-Chalk *** Great for learning more about the planets of our Solar System
Links to the Planets section of SankeyScience.org: *** lots of stunning images from Astronomy Picture of the Day
Nine Planets: a multimedia tour of the Solar System
Solar eclipses for
beginners *** Check out these links if you've ever been confused about solar
and lunar eclipses!
Lunar eclipses for
beginners
Animation of partial solar eclipse of April 8th 2005
Winter solstice 2004
For slide versions of the 2004 winter solstice (the shortest day of the year) follow these links
Winter solstice combined slides (4 slides) 217kb
Winter solstice slide presentation (15 slides) 340kb
Sunset sky at Great Sankey
The Belt of Venus at sunset
Moon and Mars above Shaley brow
Objects outside the Solar System
Galaxies
Nebulae
Teacher support: The Solar System and beyond: QCA's Unit 7L Scheme from the DFES website