The Research-Proven Solution for Astronomy Education

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'Starry Night has revolutionized my astronomy teaching and energized my students. It has given them a strong foundation in understanding how the universe works. I am certain that you will enjoy using and discovering new things with Starry Night and I know that your students will appreciate putting their hands on the universe.'

Features and Benefits

Starry Night College makes it easy to teach astronomy. The ideal companion to your astronomy textbook, Starry Night gives you powerful, accurate, customizable tools to inspire and engage your students.

Starry Night College includes more than 45 computer exercises, complete with dazzling interactive simulations, all fully mapped to top college astronomy textbooks.

The software is readily accessible to an unlimited number of students via the deeply discounted student download version.

The step-by-step exercises in Starry Night College will lead your students to a solid understanding of the universe.

Topics covered include:

• Earth, Moon, and Sun
• Diurnal Motion
• Earth’s Revolution Around the Sun
• The Local Coordinate System
• Measuring Angles in the Sky
• The Celestial Sphere
• The Celestial Coordinate System
• Solar and Sidereal Days
• The Year and Seasons
• The Analemma
• The Moon
• Phases of the Moon
• Lunar and Solar Eclipses
• Precession and Nutation
• The Solar System
• Geocentric to the Heliocentric Model
• Planetary Orbits and Configurations
• Johannes Kepler and Elliptical Orbits
• Galileo Strengthens and the Heliocentric Model
• Modern Overview of Our Solar System
• Organization, Size and Scale of the Solar System
• Romer’s Light Experiment
• The Inner Planets of the Solar System
• The Outer Planets of the Solar System
• Direct and Retrograde Motion of the Planets
• The Moons of the Planets
• The Dwarf Planets
• Small Solar System Bodies
• Asteroids of the Main Belt
• Comets and Meteors
• Impact: Near Earth Objects
• Trans-Neptunian Objects
• Finding Your Way Around the Sky
• The Magnitude Scale
• Seasonal Constellations
• The Zodiac and Astronomy’s Astrological Roots
• Our Star, the Sun
• Stellar Parallax
• Proper Motion of the Stars
• Apparent Brightness and Luminosity
• The Solar Neighborhood
• The Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram
• The Death of Stars
• Black Holes
• Our Home Galaxy, the Milky Way
• Galaxy Classification
• Redshift and the Expansion of the Universe
• Structure in the Nearby Universe
• Artificial Satellites and the Space Environment
• Great Explorations in the Solar System
• Space Based Astronomy

What's Included

Starry Night College is built on our powerful Starry Night Pro astronomy simulation software. It contains all of the incredible features of Pro, plus a correlated higher education module including 45 embedded exercises joined to hundreds of customized simulations.

• Award-winning, customized, Starry Night Planetarium Software
• Access to unlimited and deeply discounted student download version.
• Professor’s Guide
• Astronomy Companion Guide (PDF)
• 45+ integrated computer exercises
• Library of pre-assembled, built-in simulations
• Create movies of your customized simulations and export images
• Student Worksheets and Answer Keys
• Exercises mapped to college astronomy textbooks
• Links, references and suggestions for Online access to additional content and resources
• And much more!

Textbook Mapping

Starry Night College exercises are fully mapped to top college astronomy textbooks. Textbook correlations are available to registered users of Starry Night College. To request a copy, simply contact us with your name and registration number, along with the textbook, author and edition required.

System Requirements

To run Starry Night College you'll need:

Windows: Requires Windows XP, Vista, 7 or 8, 1GHz or higher processor, 512 MB RAM and 2 GB of hard disk space. 64 MB OpenGL capable graphics card. Minimum recommended monitor resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels.

Macintosh: Universal Binary runs natively on Intel and PPC Macintosh computers. Requires OS X 10.5 or higher, G4 450 MHz or higher processor, 512 MB RAM and 2 GB of hard disk space. Will not run on OS 9.x or earlier. 32 MB OpenGL capable graphics card. Minimum recommended monitor resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels.

Basic support for joysticks recognized by Windows XP and Mac OS X.

Screenshots

Understand the mechanics of lunar and solar eclipses from the perspective of the Earth, Moon or Sun.

Visualize the motions of the Earth that cause precession and nutation. Starry Night can travel in time from 99, 999 BC to 99, 999 AD.

Fly to any object in the solar system, any star or galaxy. Starry Night plots 700 million light years of space and contains millions of objects in its database.

Explore the Milky Way galaxy and the structure of the Universe.