I need printable star charts showing stars to about magnitude 6

[absael]

I'm doing a project for my Astronomy class in which I have to determine the dimmest star that I can see with the naked eye. The skies are pretty dark here, so I'm thinking I might be able see stars to magnitude 6 or so, based on what I've read.

I want a printed chart to take with me to identify stars. Are printable charts available online that identify stars to magnitude 6?

[ebutts]

Here's a magnitude chart of Ursa Minor. It doesn't go down to mag. 6, but it's a starting point I guess.

http://www.popastro.com/sections/vs/vss_charts/umi_transparency.gif

[Gandalf223]

Cartes du Ciel will let you print your own. It's freeware.

Go to Preferences/Catalogs and Object Parameters to set the limits for magnitudes on the chart.

[RickJ]

Cartes du Ceil is the Cadalac of such free programs. It likely is far more than you need. You can find it at
http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/Cartes-du-Ciel-Download-3386.html
and other places if you google it. It can be set to print at any magnitude limit you desire and goes well below naked eye levels. It is a 15 megabyte download however.

It sounds like you may be involved with the Globe at Night project, many schools are. Unfortunately their charts seem so small as to be unusable. You may have already discovered this.
http://www.globe.gov/globeatnight/observe_magnitude.html

There are other free programs out there but I'm not familiar with them.

Rick


Rick

[absael]

Thanks everybody! Cartes du Ceil was exactly what I needed! I downloaded the Beta version, 3.0.1.6.

Rick, this is for a community college Astronomy class. We have a number of observing projects to choose from. I picked this one because it doesn't require any equipment, and because I'm curious to find out what the limiting visual magnitude here is (I can easily see the band of the Milky Way).