Extreme Astronomy Quiz

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Across
  1. 4. Two words for a measure of time by the stars, ---- marks the right ascension of stars on your local meridian at any moment.
  2. 5. The moment when a celestial object crosses the meridian and is thus at its highest above the horizon.
  3. 6. A supermassive black hole gorging on gas at the center of a distant galaxy.
  4. 10. The angle between the plane of an orbit and a reference plane.
  5. 13. The diameter of a telescope’s main lens or mirror
  6. 14. A measure of the atmosphere’s stability.
  7. 16. A slight tipping and tilting of the Moon from week to week that brings various features along the limb into better view.
  8. 20. When the Moon or a planet passes directly in front of a more distant planet or star.
  9. 22. A temporary dark blemish on the surface of the Sun that is a planet-size region of gas cooler than its surroundings.
  10. 24. Two words for a device for aiming your telescope that shows the sky as it appears to your unaided eye, without magnification.
  11. 25. The celestial equivalent of latitude, denoting how far (in degrees) an object in the sky lies north or south of the celestial equator.
  12. 26. The apparent offset of a foreground object against the background when your perspective changes.
  13. 27. The edge of a celestial object’s visible disk.
  14. 31. Sunlight reflected by Earth that makes the otherwise dark part of the Moon glow faintly. It’s especially obvious during the Moon’s thin crescent phases.
  15. 35. Two words for A concentration of mass so dense that nothing — not even light — can escape its gravitational pull once swallowed up.
  16. 38. A device that can be adjusted to show the appearance of the night sky for any time and date on a round star map.
  17. 39. The path among the stars traced by the Sun throughout the year.
  18. 40. Any prominent star pattern that isn’t a whole constellation
Down
  1. 1. Two words for a material that allows safe viewing of the Sun by blocking nearly all of its light.
  2. 2. Latin for “cloud.”
  3. 3. When Mercury or Venus crosses the disk of the Sun, making the planet visible as a black dot in silhouette, or when a moon passes across the face of its parent planet.
  4. 5. When the Moon or a planet appears especially close either to another planet or to a bright star.
  5. 7. A small telescope used to aim your main scope at an object in the sky.
  6. 8. The measure of how much an orbit deviates from being circular.
  7. 9. Two words for an entry in a catalog of 103 star clusters, nebulas, and galaxies compiled by a French comet hunter between 1758 and 1782.
  8. 11. The changing illumination of the Moon (or other body) over time. (more illuminated, between its new and full phases)
  9. 12. When an object moves in the reverse sense of “normal” motion.
  10. 15. Two words for the celestial equivalent of longitude, denoting how far an object lies east of the Sun’s location during the March equinox.
  11. 17. A timetable with celestial coordinates that indicates where a planet, comet, or other body moving in relation to background stars will be in the sky.
  12. 18. When the Moon or other body appears more than half, but not fully, illuminated.
  13. 19. Aligning the optical elements of a telescope so that they all point in the proper direction.
  14. 21. The imaginary north-south line that passes directly overhead.
  15. 23. Greek for “circle of animals.”
  16. 28. Two words for a few "beads" of sunlight, shining between mountain peaks and through the valleys along the Moon's edge in the moment before totality.
  17. 29. Two words for a star whose brightness changes over the course of days, weeks, months, or years.
  18. 30. The point in the sky that’s directly overhead.
  19. 32. Two words for two stars that lie very close to, and are often orbiting, each other.
  20. 33. A type of Newtonian reflector that uses a simple but highly effective wooden mount.
  21. 34. The changing illumination of the Moon (or other body) over time. (less illuminated, between its full and new phases)
  22. 36. Denotes an object near a celestial pole that never dips below the horizon as Earth rotates and thus does not rise or set.
  23. 37. The two times each year, near March 20th and September 22nd, when the Sun is directly overhead at noon as seen from Earth’s equator.