Curriculum Connection: Grade 6 Space, Grade 9 Astronomy
To help find your way around the night sky, Skymaps.com makes available for free each month The Evening Sky Map. It is a 2-page monthly guide to the night skies of the northern and southern hemispheres. Each issue contains a detailed sky map, a monthly sky calendar, and a descriptive list of the best objects to see with binoculars, a telescope, or using just your eyes. The font size on the printout is about a nine, but still readable for my aging eyes.
Great magazines like SkyNews (Canadian) and Astronomy (American) offer an equal amount of information as Skymaps and with interesting articles that befit magazines of this caliber.
Educators can make printed handouts for non-commercial educational use.
For educators and students who want a current sky map for free, this is one valuable resource.
The above Skymap is used with permission.
See http://skymaps.com
Some testimonials about Skymaps:
“Your sky maps are great — visually attractive, easy to use and information dense. Great for unaided eye and casual stargazing, a fine introduction to astronomy, especially for younger night sky explorers. Great job! Thanks!”
— Kevin M. Ahern (Massachusetts, USA)
“Great maps. I am so happy to have found you. Thank you. It helps so much to have a monthly map, for planets and such-like and rediscovering childhood constellations with my child.”
— Monty Drake (British Columbia, Canada)
By Stan Taylor
Stan Taylor is a retired elementary school teacher. He currently does science workshops for Scientists in School and is a member of the Crucible and Elements Editorial Committee (CEEC).