alleryStart learning →Astronomy Olympiad Observing the Sky — practice questions
Explore 22 free Observing the Sky questions in Astronomy Olympiad Astronomy. Each question opens with answer choices, the correct answer and a worked solution.
Practise Observing the Sky with Quill →Observing the Sky MCQs with answers
Showing questions 1–22 of 22.
The early Greeks pictured the stars as fixed to a giant turning ball. They called it the:Read the answer and worked solution →A modern student is told the nightly turning of the sky is really caused by:Read the answer and worked solution →Earth's axis extended outwards meets the sky at two points called the celestial:Read the answer and worked solution →An observer in San Francisco at latitude 38 degrees north sees the north celestial pole at:Read the answer and worked solution →A traveller moves closer to the equator and sees the sky turn differently. This depends on her:Read the answer and worked solution →A hiker finds the star that shifts least as the northern sky turns. That star is:Read the answer and worked solution →A full circle drawn right around the celestial sphere contains how many degrees?Read the answer and worked solution →Against the background stars, the Sun creeps eastwards each day by roughly:Read the answer and worked solution →The yearly path the Sun traces around the celestial sphere is called the:Read the answer and worked solution →Because of its eastward drift, the Sun rises later each day than the stars by about:Read the answer and worked solution →The ecliptic is tilted away from the celestial equator by an angle of about:Read the answer and worked solution →The Sun climbs north then swings south through the year because the ecliptic is:Read the answer and worked solution →The Sun, Moon and planets all stay inside an 18 degree belt of sky called the:Read the answer and worked solution →Ancient Chinese, Egyptian and Greek watchers grouped stars into patterns called:Read the answer and worked solution →The Big Dipper is only a star pattern inside Ursa Major, so it is called an:Read the answer and worked solution →Earth's axis slowly swings around a circle, a motion astronomers call:Read the answer and worked solution →One complete circle of Earth's precession takes roughly how many years?Read the answer and worked solution →Because of precession, the bright star Vega will be the North Star in about:Read the answer and worked solution →A planet appears to move briefly westwards as Earth overtakes it. This is called:Read the answer and worked solution →Ptolemy explained planet loops with a small circle riding on a bigger one. The small circle is the:Read the answer and worked solution →Copernicus concluded that Earth is a planet and that every planet circles the:Read the answer and worked solution →In 1609 Galileo showed Venetian officials a new instrument that magnified nine times. It was a:Read the answer and worked solution →
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