(Voluntary) homework

There is no need to return any material and nothing will be graded,
but please do it anyway, for your own sake -- it will be easier to
understand the lecture and to do the actual exercises when you have
some understanding of the basic concepts.

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Use a sky map to familiarize yourself with some of the constellations
that can be seen in the night sky at this time of the year, for
example Orion, Cassiopeia (in Finnish "Kassiopeia") or Ursa Major
("Iso Karhu") or a famous part of it, Big Dipper ("Otava"), or some
other constellation of your choice.

Use sky map's tools to change the time, and pay attention to how the
position of the constellation changes in the sky through the night.

If the sky is clear during this week, try to find "your" constellation
in the sky with the help of the sky map!  Note: In sky maps North is
up and South is down, but East and West are opposite to what you would
be used to in normal maps. Think about this so that if you lift the
map over your head to try to match the constellations, then your East
and West directions would also match the compass directions.

Try to find the same constellations in the sky map also in other
months of the year. Pay attention to how the local time for when it is
visible in each direction changes.

Some planets can be seen in the sky (evening or morning). Find
them in the sky map, and if the weather permits, try to find them in
the sky! 

Using the sky map software, choose a location
A) On the North/South Pole
B) On the Equator
Follow the paths of the stars trough the night,
and at different times of the year.
On the Equator location, pay special attention to how the stars behave
in the directions North, West, South, East!


Tools:

An easy-to-use sky map for Finland: http://www.ursa.fi/extra/tahtikartta/
You can enter the desired viewing date and time in the box below the map, or fast forward/backward.
Unfortunately the names of constellations etc. are here only available in Finnish :(

Lots of sky map apps are available for Anrdoid, iPhone, iPad etc. Look
for SkyMap, for instance.  Some of them (including SkyMap) allow you
to point into a certain direction in the sky and use the device's
sensors to identify the constellations visible in that direction!

Stellarium, http://www.stellarium.org/ -- a sophisticated free planetarium software available for most platforms.
It takes a while to familiarize yourself with all the various
properties of this software, but it is a really powerful tool for
astronomy enthusiasts! This may also be useful for checking the
answers that you get for your calculations of the exercises.
To get started: Set the desired location in the location menu of the
left side menus, and the desired date & time in the date & time window.
Especially if you want to study locations of observatories elsewhere in 
the world, pay attention to the time zone -- the default is your computer's
time zone, so it is advisable to change it to UTC time in order not to get
confused.
In the search window you can give in the coordinates of your target source,
and in the astronomical calculations window you can study for example the
elevation vs. time plot of the selected source.

Skymap.org: http://www.sky-map.org/
A web-based sky viewing application that lets you study individual
objects in more detail. Not so practical for finding your way in the
local night sky, though.