SCENE THREE "Suburban Back Garden- Night"

Here we have to depict the night sky on mid summers night. So some thoughts for classroom discussion.

Magnitude. Some stars are brighter than others.

Shine.What makes a star shine? Atomic energy within.

Difference between a Planet and a Star. Stars do not move. (Well they do, but are so far away the movement is imperceptible to us here on earth) The standard way of visualising this is to imagine the stars all pasted inside a transparent sphere which surrounds the earth - the celestial dome. The stars don't move, - it is us standing on a revolving, orbiting, planet which move.

However the planets are much nearer to us and they too are orbiting our Sun. So whilst stars seem to remain stationary to each other. (allowing for the gyrations of the earth) the Planets appear to take most unusual movements, even doubling back on themselves, as the earth and the planets dance around each other. It was these unusual movements which alerted the 'ancients' to distinguish between planets and stars.

Constellations. Individual named stars are hard to distinguish, so to help spot which was which those same ancients gave groups of them names - constellations- sort of giant 'join the dots'. Personally it takes quite a bit of imagination to see these pictures and we really could do with more stars at the extremities but I suppose beggars cant be choosers.