Astronomy

Astronomy is the field of science dedicated to understanding the universe. Astronomy is an amalgam of physics, chemistry, and (more and more) biology that aims to describe the universe with a mixture of reasoned-out theories and empirical laws. The UMBC Observatory employs aspects of the sub-field of astronomy focused on how to make measurements of the universe from the surface of the Earth. This sub-field is ground-based observational astronomy.

Members of the Observatory Group use ideas from observational astronomy to understand processes and other natural phenomena involving comets, planets, variable stars, galaxies, and AGNs. Members of the Observatory Group also participate in ongoing projects related to the continued understanding of our system. These are projects related to collecting samples of our own astronomical seeing, limiting magnitude, and autoguiding capabilities.

The word “astronomy” comes from the Greek astronomos meaning “of the management or arrangement of stars”. This arrangement of stars onto maps or other records (written or verbal) allowed our ancestors to notice patterns that have served as the basis for modern time-keeping and navigation. Modern star maps make use of one or more systems of celestial coordinates. These coordinates are generally spherical coordinate systems centered on the observer(Horizontal/Alt-Az), the Earth(Equatorial), or the Sun(Ecliptic).

Another common procedure in this arrangement of stars is to arrange them by brightness. A relative brightness scale called the magnitude system has changed over the years, but we now use a fairly robust magnitude system to organize stars by relative brightness.

For absolute units, we will use the SI system of units. These — as well as their spectral counterparts — constitute the absolute scale of physical quantities we can use to arrange stars and other sources. See radiative quantities for more information on these. ¹⁾