The Night sky Knowledge Test.

[interstellar]

The Night sky Knowledge Test. A 20 question test about astronomy.
it is a thinkers test check it out below


http://www.squidoo.com/quiz-the-nigh...knowledge-test

[mental4astro (Alexander)]

I took the test. Came up 16/20.

However, there are errors in the answers, from what I know of mythology,

Q5: Orion wasn't killed by a Scorpion, he was blinded by the sting of one, and is attempting to regain his sight be looking towards the rising sun.

Q2: Pegasus was born of the blood of the slain Medusa, not Hydra, who was beheaded by Perseus.

Q18: The closest nebula to Earth is assocciated with the Pleiades, which is around 440 ly from Earth.

I'm prepared to stand by these above.

The answer I admit to getting wrong is number 14, . I really don't know much about the timing of meteor showers.

[ArcaneMagik (Craig)]

I assume they are going with the Orion nebula for the closest one, and even skipping the nebulosity of Pleiades, the Helix Nebula is at 695 ly. Even if they are doing the Orion nebula its the wrong distance by about 100ly.

15/20 for myself. Still not exactly clued up on all the mythology of the constellations.

[Suzy]

Originally Posted by mental4astro

I took the test. Came up 16/20.

However, there are errors in the answers, from what I know of mythology,

Q5: Orion wasn't killed by a Scorpion, he was blinded by the sting of one, and is attempting to regain his sight be looking towards the rising sun.

Q2: Pegasus was born of the blood of the slain Medusa, not Hydra, who was beheaded by Perseus.

Q18: The closest nebula to Earth is assocciated with the Pleiades, which is around 440 ly from Earth.

I'm prepared to stand by these above.

The answer I admit to getting wrong is number 14, . I really don't know much about the timing of meteor showers.

Just been doing a bit of research and there are lots of different versions about Orion and Scorpio. Reading through my books and looking on-line I was surprised how many different versions of Greek mythology there are on Orion & Scorpio. The most common one though seems to be that Scorpio killed Orion/ or was on his death bed, until Ophiuchus the healer gave Orion a life saving antidote.
I have two books in front of me as I type this, one saying he died, the other saying he lived on. Go figure.... Oh well, either way the scorpion had his his way with him.
Going by this, I don't think a yes or no answer can apply to any stories of greek mythology and should not have it's place in a questionnaire. The only common thread through a lot of reading I've just done seems to be that Orion fancied Artemis (goddess of hunting) and the scorpion attacked him.
One version of the myth even says that Artemis accidentally killed him with an arrow.

[Barrykgerdes]

The one underlying fact on the myths of ancient Greece and Rome is that they are myths so must have been changed a lot by whoever recounted them.

My book from H.A. Guerber 1907 says Orion was blinded by Oenopion and had sight restored by a friendly cyclops who took him to the Sun from where he borrowed a store of sight. Diana fell in love with him much to the annoyance of Apollo who tricked her into shooting him with an arrow. When she discovered her error she placed him in the sky with his faithful dog Sirius. Scorpio does not get a mention in my book.

Pegasus was born from the blood of the slain Medusa. Who was slain (Beheaded) by Perseus as a task to prove himself brave although there are different versions of how he got the means to do this.

Barry

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

Yikes!

I got 10 out of 20 (50%)

[noswonky (Peter)]

The question about the meteor shower in mid-summer is just stupid. Mid-summer in which hemisphere?

[Sarge (Rod)]

Tried the test and came up with 16/20 first time (happy considering a couple were guesses), but when I reviewed the answers it claimed I answered q 2 incorrect.
So did it again - and again it claimed I got q 2 wrong.
So tried a third - same result.
It would not recognise I had actually answered it correctly every time.

Rod

[tlgerdes (Trevor)]

I think the variety of incorrect answers and subjectivity in answers, proves that the person who wrote this quiz is a school teacher.

I know I am going to get flamed for that statement!

[Ric]

Oh dear 11/20

Back to the books for me.