Observing the Sky: The Birth of Astronomy (Astronomy)

Recall cards on how humans learned to read and understand the sky. The celestial sphere and its landmarks: zenith, horizon, celestial poles and equator, and how the pole's altitude reveals your latitude. The ecliptic, the 88 constellations, asterisms, and the zodiac. Ancient astronomy: Eratosthenes measuring the Earth, Hipparchus and his star catalog, magnitudes, and precession, Ptolemy's geocentric model and the Almagest, Stonehenge, and the Maya. Astrology versus astronomy: horoscopes, the twelve signs, and why astrology has no scientific support. The birth of modern astronomy: Copernicus and the heliocentric model, and Galileo's telescopic discoveries of the phases of Venus, the moons of Jupiter, the stars of the Milky Way, and the mountains of the Moon.