Rawlings 1

Emmalie Rawlings

Professor Harrison

Physics 1040

17 April 2019

Reflection Paper

The Constellation Paper that I created for this Astronomy 1040 class was a very

interesting assignment. There was a variety of content that needed to be included and it gave me

the chance to learn a great amount of information about the constellation Taurus. The paper was

broken up into 5 main parts, which are: Mythology, Constellation, 20 brightest stars, and 2

objects of interest. There was a length requirement of 5 pages, not included the cover paper of

bibliography. There was also a requirement for images to be found within the pages of the paper.

The purpose of this paper was for us to be able to gain an extensive amount of information about

one constellation rather than very little about many. This assignment was a great learning

opportunity for me and I thought it was beneficial that we were able to choose the constellation

we wanted to research. Because we were able to choose, I think our commitment to learning

more about it increased. I think the main purpose of this assignment was to increase our interest

in Astronomy and allow us to research deeply into a topic that we would not have been able to

discuss in class.

Although we learned a great deal while in class, I think that this paper helped support the

main concepts that we often discussed. We never discussed mythology in class, but we were able

to talk a little bit about a few constellations. I think an important thing that was learned, applied,

and expanded upon through the paper was recognizing stars and other objects in the specific area
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of the constellation rather than the stars that make up the specific feature. but we did discuss

different star types, nebulas, star clusters, etc. that I think was expanded upon greatly throughout

the paper. The concepts of RA and DEC that we discussed in class were able to be applied,

which helped me as a student remember the concept itself. A very important concept that was

referred to throughout my paper was the different between visual magnitude and spectral

luminosity. I think these concepts were reoccurring throughout the class and this paper and

ultimately had to be understood in order to be applied to the paper correctly.

This assignment held a lot of promise and I was able to learn a great deal and apply a

large amount of the concepts taught in class to this paper. One main thing that I learned from this

assignment was about mythology. I have discussed mythology with friends in the past but very

became very interested in it. Having to research the mythology behind constellations was very

interesting to me because it reminded me of how humans always try to understand and answer

confusing topics or phenomenon. Overall, I think the mythological section of the paper was the

most interesting to write about, but the section I probably learned the most in was the 2 objects

of interest. I think learning about how, when, and who, discovered such interesting parts of the

galaxy was intriguing to me. Learning about the larger picture of the universe was an important

perspective that I gained in this class. Aside from the astronomical perspective for this paper, I

was able to learn a great deal about myself and what I cared about in my education. Having the

opportunity to develop a deeper understanding of a specific part of the universe will benefit me

when making conversation about the cosmological perspective or when discussing the things of

this world. I hope that in the future I can find more physical science classes that intrigue me,

help me want to improve myself, and urge me to recognize the different perspectives of the

universe and those who live in it.