When beginning this project we were immediately faced with the problem of observing supernovae.  Since we could not observe a supernova, nor any supernova remnants, we chose to observe the Orion Nebula being that it is a stellar nursery.  For our observations we used the following tools :10/50 binoculars, the Orion telescope and the starry nights program to see the Orion nebula as well as to track its path on the night of march 10th and is path across the sky from march 10th to when it disappeared in may.  There were two main ways we observed the Orion Nebula.  The first entailed looking with our eyes through a telescope and binoculars and the second involved using electronic resources to actually track the motion of the Orion Nebula.

    We observed the Orion Nebula through the month of march and april with our binoculars and the Orion telescope.  The Orion Nebula lies below Orions belt and to the naked eye is hardly visible.  The Orion Nebula, on a clear night, as observed with the naked eye, tends to look like a very small fuzzy point of light.  With the magnification of 10/50 binoculars, the fuzzy dot becomes bigger and brighter.  We could make out three main points of light with a white iridescent fuzz around the points of light.  Although we were not always able to see all of the constellation of Orion or the Nebula every time we looked, the clearest of our observations with the binoculars reveled the three main points of light and the haze around them.

    When observing the Orion Nebula through the Orion telescope we were able to see the Nebula with more magnification and clarity.  These observations revealed that there were many more than three points of light surrounded by the white haze.  However, even with the Orion telescope the Nebula appeared fuzzy and it was difficult to differentiate or approximate the stars from one another or how many there were.  We had far fewer opportunities to observe the Orion Nebula through the telescope compared to with our binoculars, however, the observations through the Orion telescope gave us a much better visual of the Orion nebula.   There were the three clear points of light surrounded by what appeared to be thousands or even millions of little dots.  Sadly, we never observed the beautiful reds and pinks of the Orion Nebula with our own eyes, but, we have been given the pleasure of some beautiful photos of the colors.

 (Orion Nebula, Photo credit: Jim Fullerton-Lake Afton Public Observatory)

    We also used the Starry Nights program to track the path of the Orion Nebula across the sky as it traveled by hour and by month.  The first simulation we ran was of the motion of Orion as it crossed the sky on the night of March 10th.  We looked at the change in position of the Nebula every two hours.  We found that it moved from south-west, where we started a 9:30pm,  toward the western horizon where it set at 3:12am.  We found this helpful in understanding the general nightly motion of The Orion Nebula in the month of March.

This is a diagram of the motion of the Orion Nebula as it moves every two hours on the night of march 10th.  Next we tracked the Orion Nebula as it traveled across the sky from March to May.  March is the last "prime" month for viewing the Orion Nebula.  We wanted to track the Nebula from about the time we started our observations of The Orion nebula to when it disappeared from the night sky.  We used the same day, time and location for all our observations (the 10th of March, April and may at 9:30pm with a latitude 40 degrees North).  The Orion Nebula, in March, was visible high in the South-Western sky and moved progressively lower toward the West through April. By may 10th only two of the stars in the constellation Orion were visible and the Orion Nebula was long gone.

The Observational tear of this project was the most difficult for our team, finding something to observe that was related to our project was difficult.  Although the Orion Nebula is not a supernova remnant it is a stellar nursery and all the elements and dust that combine to make new stars are remnants of supernovae of the past.