Abstract

Contributed Talk - Splinter Education

Thursday, 12 September 2024, 14:00   (S23)

Rediscovering Historical Astronomical Data – Student Projects on Historical Data and Photo Plates in Cooperation with the Stellarium Gornergrat

Simon F. Kraus, Marvin zur Mühlen, Andreas Müller, Timm Riesen, Leon Rohde, Oliver Schwarz
University of Siegen

The Stellarium Gornergrat has been providing a robotic observatory on the name-giving Gornergrat at an altitude of more than 3000 metres for eight years. This telescope is available to Swiss schools to use free of charge. Access to the instruments is provided in a low-threshold way via a portal in which educational activities are provided to enable straightforward integration into the classroom. The breadth of these activities is to be successively expanded as part of a new project, which is currently focussing on combining historical data, including in the form of classic photographic plates, with new findings in astrophysics and the observation possibilities on the Gornergrat. The talk will present the basic ideas and initial results of the preparation of these new activities will be presented. This includes the educational reconstruction of a current scientific publication in which the development of the colour of the star Betelgeuse over a period of colour of the star Betelgeuse over a period of 2,000 years. The reconstruction is currently in the final phase of being its availability as a student activity. A second focus is currently on the use of photographic plates, which includes both stellar spectra and photographic images for astrometric and photometric analysis. The possible target groups here extend beyond learners at general education schools to students enrolled in physics teacher training programmes. In addition to spectroscopy, possible content approaches here include the astrometric search for double or multiple star systems and the search for variable stars. An overview is also given of ideas for further activities, some of which are still at an early conceptual stage.