Online Interactive Sky Chart

Jeff N, a science teacher at one of our county schools, showed me this great website today: Sky and Telescope Magazine's Interactive Sky Chart. Here is the description from their website:

Create a custom naked-eye map of the whole sky for any place
on Earth, at any time of day or night, on any date from 1600 to 2400. Our Interactive Sky Chart works in most Java-enabled Web browsers.

You can enter the location by zip code, latitude and longitude, or city and country, then select the date and time and get an interactive sky chart that shows the position of stars and planets. Best of all, you can then create and print a PDF that will help you to find these celestial objects in the night time sky in your own backyard!

Because it gets dark so early, this is the perfect time of year to help elementary students learn about the Moon and stars. Here is a "Real World Context" from the Michigan Curriculum Framework:

Science/Strand V/Content Standard 4/Elementary/Benchmark 2: Outdoor observation of the Sun’s and stars’ motions during the night and the Moon’s motions over several days

To avoid any browser "issues" be sure to check out the extensive help files posted on the Sky and Telescope website.

Tonight's Sky over Toledo, Ohio