Astronomy posters to download
posted: 1127 days ago, on Friday, 2009 Jan 09 at 14:30
tags: astronomy, outreach, downloads, Milky Way, Sun, Moon.
In support of our 2008 DST/SAASTA Astronomy Month outreach we developed a set of posters illustrating basic astronomy concepts.
These are cool talking-points when displayed at a venue, and can be used in even the most remote regions that are likely to be without electricity for your laptop and digital projector.
The posters listed below, free for you to download, were designed for A1-sized full-colour reproduction, so their PDF versions are rather large.
If you find them useful, drop me a line. Better still, send a photograph of the posters in use during your outreach event. Good luck & have fun!
Posters to download
| Ref. No. | Title & PDF | What it shows | PDF size |
| 001.2 | Our Sun | four photos of the solar disk, three of the surface, table of basic facts | 1.4M |
| 002.6 | Earth amongst the stars | orbit of the Earth around the Sun, zodiac constellations in the background | 0.73M |
| 003.2 | Earth's axial tilt | Earth, axial tilt, atmosphere, attentuation of sunlight vs. latitude | 0.64M |
| 005.5 | Moon phases | Moon in orbit around the Earth, Sun | 1.1M |
| 005.5 | (cutouts for Moon phases poster) | four lunar phase images, Earth globe with rotation marks. Cut out these images and attach them to the "Moon phases" poster at the appropriate position as you explain the Moon's changing appearance. | 0.71M |
| 007.b3 | Eclipses | view from outer space of Earth-Moon-Sun, and shadows. | 0.62M |
| 008.1 | Earth satellites | Earth, day/night, satellite in orbit, changing visibility | 0.87M |
| 008.6 | Space Exploration | 11 space craft (two fictional) | 1.8M |
| 008.b1 | Space in South Africa | space science & space technology in South Africa. (Adapted from a presentation by Dr Peter Martinez, SAAO) | 0.84M |
| 009.9 | Solar System (orbits) | orbits of the planets and dwarf planets to scale; inclinations; names of known moons. | 0.10M |
| 010a.11 | Solar System (planets) | images of the planets and dwarf planets, to scale. | 0.62M |
| 010b.11 | Solar System (Sun & planets) | images of the Sun, planets and dwarf planets, to scale. | 0.99M |
| 011.3 | Solar system fact sheet | Table of basic information on the solar system (A3-size) | 0.34M |
| 103.2 | Galaxies | Montage of galaxies – spirals, barred spirals, irregular, interacting, edge-on. Very pretty. | 2.1M |
| 105.8 | Milky Way | Milky Way, arms, constellations, disk/halo, etc. Lots to work with here. | 0.54M |
| 107.1 | Nebulae | Montage of bright & dark nebulae. Very pretty. | 1.2M |
| 108.1 | Star clusters | Montage of open and globular clusters. Very pretty. | 1.8M |
| 110.3 | Star sizes | Stars drawn to scale – Proxima Cen, Sun, Achernar, Canopus, gamma Crucis, VY CMa, etc. | 0.33M |
| 202.8 | Constellations | Constellations as cultural patterns in the night sky. Crux, Mensa, Orion, /Xam legend. | 0.83M |
| 766.1 | Human solar system | 9 A3-sized images of the Sun and planets, clearly labelled. The Sun poster has a table of heliocentric distances, scaled down so that 1 AU = 2 metres. Wonderful outdoor activity, ending with Neptune at 60 metres from the Sun. Diameters of a few stars are given, which can be marked out on the ground with string. | 1.3M |
| 500.5 | Astronomy in South Africa | Major astronomical facilities in southern Africa – SALT, HartRAO, HESS, meerKAT/SKA. | 1.7M |
nothing more to see. please move along.