Assignment 3: Scale of the Galaxy

(Due: Week of 14 March 2020)

Instructions: Show each step of your calculations. Define the symbols you use. Lay
out your arguments logically and in full.

1. What can you learn from determining the maximum elevation of the Sun or a star
above the horizon using a sextant? What other information, if any, is required for you
to determine your longitude on the Earth? [10]

2. Compute the angular separation between two stars having Right Ascensions of
01h30m15s and 02h00m00s if located at Declinations of 0°, 45°, and 80°. [15]

3. Compute the absolute magnitudes of Vega and Sirius. [10]

4. Before the era of photography, telescopic measurements of star positions

(coordinates) in the sky had a precision (measurement uncertainty) of about 3˝. Given
that even the nearest stars have stellar parallaxes of less than 1˝, how were stellar
parallaxes measured before photography was used in astronomy? You may search the
web for answers, providing a sufficiently detailed answer (with diagrams if helpful) to
demonstrate your understanding. [20]
5. The figure below shows observations of the asteroid Phaethon taken at two
different locations on the Earth, as explained in the caption to the figure. Measure
approximately (with a ruler) the stellar parallax (the value given in the caption has
been deliberately blanked out), and compute the distance to this asteroid. The scale of
the image is indicated at the lower right corner. [10]

6. The stellar parallax of Proxima Centauri is 768.5 ± 0.2 masec. Could a similar
periodic translation motion be produced solely by a planet that just happens to have an
orbital period of 1 year? If not, what would be the maximal translation motion owing
to a planet? Proxima Centauri has a mass of 0.123 M¤. You may assume an upper
limit for a planet mass of 0.08 M¤, the currently accepted value for the minimum
mass of stars. [20]
7. The figure below shows measurements of the apparent motion in the sky of a
maser in the Orion-KL region, a star-forming region in the Orion Nebula, relative to
the Earth. This measurement was made at radio wavelengths by the VERA (VLBI
Exploration of Radio Astrometry) telescope; VLBI (Very Long Baseline
Interferometry) is a technique of linking up widely-spaced telescopes to function like
a single large telescope. The stellar parallax as inferred from these measurements is
2.29 mas. Compute the proper motion of this object, and its transverse. Compute
also its space velocity given a radial velocity for this maser of 25 km/s. [20]
8. Look up the wavelengths of the spectral lines of hydrogen, and the nomenclature
used to label these lines. Identify the hydrogen lines in the solar spectrum over the
range shown below. [10]

9. From the table below, identify the spectral lines in the solar spectrum labeled a-h.
[10]
10. The two pictures below show images of the Sun taken at the same time by
NASA’s Solar Terrestrial Reflection Observatory (STEREO) mission. STEREO
consists of twin spacecrafts that orbit the Sun, one spacecraft ahead of the Earth and
the other following behind. The spacecraft that trails behind Earth captured the image
on the left, and the spacecraft that travels ahead of Earth captured the image on the
right. The pictures show ultraviolet light; the hotter the temperature, the brighter the
light. The prominence indicated is a filament of gas confined by magnetic fields
rising from the Sun’s surface. Why does this filament appear dark in the left image
and bright in the right image? [10]

11. At the precision of Gaia to the brightest stars, what is the farthest distance that
Gaia can measure? To what scale does this distance correspond to in terms of the size
of our Galaxy (diameter of ~30 kpc) or the distance to the nearest galaxies (look up a
reliable source for distances to nearest galaxies)? Note: precision refers to the
measurement uncertainty. Only measurement values equal to or larger than, typically,
three times the measurement uncertainty are regarded as statistically significant (i.e.,
“real” or “meaningful”.) [15]