April 10
Create Tactile Star Charts for everyone with this activity. You will end up not only with constellation models that a blind person can understand but also with a beautiful hand-made piece of craft. The procedure is simple: Plot the constellations, each on a scale to fit an 8½ X 11 inch frame. Look up the magnitudes and write them in. Draw in the outlines. These are the masks. Create charts, using the masks to place the stars with cross-hair accuracy. You will find many finished masks at http://thefingerworks.com/AstroCharts/maps.htm. You can download the mask by clicking the PDF button to the right of the chart-picture.
