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let's pretend that we're going to Hawaii for Christmas with some friends and we
want to impress them with what we know about the sky
we first want to change the location
to Hawaii
Honolulu to be more exact
and we want to change our time
to Christmas
at nine pm
so nine plus twelve is twenty one
and it still light out
because were nine pm
December twenty-fifth eastern standard time and there's a six hour difference
between eastern standard time and hawaiin time
when it's six pm in the eastern standard time zone
it's only twelve noon
in hawaii so we need to add six more hours
now we see
that it's actually
twelve twenty six
at three am
to be nine pm Hawaiin time
let's take another look at our horizontal menu bar
i'm going to create this little triangle turn it into a box to have it remain
doable
now let's take a look at this equatorial grid
when I turn that on
the lines look more curved
if i turn on the azimuth grid
the lines look more straight up and down
i'm going to turn off the equatorial grid for the moment
if we look at the stars especially the ones close to the lines
it looks like they're moving
and that's because they are
the screens being updated at
15 frames per second at the moment
and actually adjusting those stars
just a little bit
as the time passes
if you can't tell the stars are moving or don't have the patience
we can speed things up by clicking this little fast-forward button
when I click that notice the seconds are going a lot faster
if I click it a second time
the minutes move
like seconds and we can actually see the stars moving
through the grid
so what we have here at this little play button
the play button
sets the time back
to the normal rate of time
and our fast-forward can make things go faster
and we also have a fast reverse
which of course
makes time go backwards
we can also pause time
and if we pause time we can have the stars remain exactly where they are right now
for as long as we want
if we really want to get crazy though
we can make this time go really fast
and make days go by
in seconds
if we turn on the equatorial grid
and speed up time
will notice that the grid moves with the stars
this last button here
resets the clock to the current date and time
so right now we're twelve twenty five at
at nine pm Hawaiian time or three thirty am eastern standard time
when i click this button
it takes us back to what time it is right now in are eastern standard time
zone
which is seven nine at
seven sixteen pm
these next three buttons we've got the ground cardinal points
and atmosphere
the cardinal points are just the north south east and west symbols
the ground we can turn the ground off
and here we don't see any stars because of the atmosphere is still on
if we turn to off the atmosphere
we can see the stars a little better
if we go back to our current date and time
it's the daylight but if we turn off the atmosphere
we can see the stars
so we can follow the stars
through the day as well as the night if we turnoff
the atmosphere - because the stars are still there
they're just hidden
by the atmosphere
this next button turns on the nebulous
and nebulous are distant galaxies
or any bright area or
clouds of gas in outer space
let's click on one
now if we can't this center button
the same thing we did with the space bar earlier
it brings the object we clicked on
to the center of the screen
let's zoom in a little bit
and here we can see what a nebula looks like a little closer
i'm going to hit the backslash to take us back
I'm going to right click to turn off the nebula information
and
turn off the nebulas
now the next one we look at planet names
here we can see
the moon in jupiter
if we turn off the planet means
the labels go away
we would have to know what these are to know if that's the moon and that is
jupiter
this next button switch between equatorial and azimuth mount
if I that turn it on
turnoff
we don't see any difference
let's turn on the equatorial grid
the blue one
and our azimuth grid
the orange one
now if I speed-up time a little bit
we see
the equatorial grid standstill
and the azimuth grid moves as well as the earth
this next button night mode that 's if you are out in the backyard with your laptop and
the
white is too bright
it dims the screen a little bit
and the ocular view if i click it
it tells me and must select something first
so i will select the star - and click it
and we'll see that it gives me like a telescope view
allowing me the focus in on a single object