Design:
The equipment I will need for my observation are the essentials:
•	3 pieces of plain white paper.
•	Drawing Equipment- Pencil, Rubber, Ruler and Sharpener.
•	A comfy chair to view the night sky in.
•	Warm Clothing (Weather Pending as my observations will take place in the summer).
•	Hot drink and food if my observations take a long time.
•	A torch with preferable with a Red Filter.
Useful terminology:
Magnitude- This is the measure of the apparent brightness of a star, during my observations I will predicting the magnitudes of the Stars from sight by using a reference star that will help me in my estimations.
Limiting Magnitude- This is the smallest apparent magnitude of a celestial body that is detectable or can be detected by a given instrument.  In this case it will be the naked eye.
Apparent Magnitude- the measure of a celestial object as it appears on earth.
Absolute Magnitude- The Magnitude of a celestial object as it would be seen at a standard distance of 10 parsecs.
Reference Star- A reference star is a star I will use in my observations that I know the Magnitude of to try and estimate the stars in the constellations I will be observing.  I plan to use Izaar as my reference star, it has a Magnitude of 2.50 (according to Stellarium) so by using this I can estimate the magnitude of the stars in my constellations; this is important because using this data I can then assign the correct Bayer designation to my stars.
Antoniadi Scale- This is a five-point system used for seeing conditions, 1 being the best seeing conditions and 5 being the worst.  I plan to use this during my observations to rate the seeing conditions during my observations.  The definitions are:
(I.) Perfect seeing, without a quiver.
(II.) Slight quivering of the image with moments of calm lasting several seconds.
(III.) Moderate seeing with larger air tremors that blur the image.
(IV.) Poor seeing, constant troublesome undulations of the image.
(V.) Very bad seeing, hardly stable enough to allow a rough sketch to be made.


The Moon:
I will be planning to observe my constellations from the 24th of June to the 26th June, the Moon during these Times is a waxing crescent; this is not ideal for my observations as it could lead to my constellations being obscured or the moon making the nights sky too bright, rendering me unable to view my constellations but luckily it is not a full Moon meaning the light coming of the moon won’t be too great.
Moon rise on the 24th of June: 23:05		Moon set on 24th/25th of June: 10:16
Moon rise on the 25th of June: 00:07		Moon set on 25th/26th of June: 11:29
Moon rise on the 26th of June: 00:35		Moon set on 26th/ 27th of June: 12:43










However the rise and set times of the Moon are quite good for my observations as I don’t plan on observing that late into the night meaning, I will be able to observe my Constellations without the Moon obscuring my view.
My Latitude of my location is N 51° 22' 44.08" and my Longitude is E 0° 31' 40.30", this is the back garden of my house, there is some possibility of constellations being obscured by trees or houses but they are both unlikely.  Unfortunately there is the problem of light pollution in my location, this could stop me from observing some constellations if they near to the horizon at my time of viewing, so it would be best to observe my chosen constellation’s at my zenith or around that area.  I do believe my location would be suitable enough for my observations, if that is not true however there are possibilities for me to do my observations potentially in a clear open field that would have little or no light pollution and no tree cover.
I plan to observe my constellations on Friday 24th, Saturday 25th or Sunday 26th of June and go out between 21:00-23:45, Time and Date says that the weather at these times should be clear and will provide good viewing conditions, the Sunday is the only day with possibility to rain but that’s why I have chosen three dates because if anything does occur I have back up dates available.






My constellations:
Hercules: I want to use Hercules as it’s quite large, it’s also going to be visible during the optimum time of viewing stars in the evening.  It’s also relatively to the other constellations I will be observing, it also is located near Vega which is a very bright star and I can use this to easily find my constellation.  During my selected times of observations it will be at a perfect viewing point.
Ursa Minor: It’s a constellation I know well and the end of its tail is Polaris so it can be easily identified in the nights sky because of how bright Polaris is.  Similar to Hercules it will be in a great position in the night’s sky to be able to observe, it’s close to my other constellations and it’s also a circumpolar constellation.
Lyra: This constellation is obviously also located near to my other constellations I plan on observing, it will be clear in the nights sky when I will be viewing the constellations and contains the bright star Vega which can also lead me to Hercules one of the other constellations I am observing; similarly to my other constellations it will be overhead making it great for my viewing.
Analysis:
Hercules:
Star	My Estimated Magnitude	Actual Magnitude
α 	2.5	2.85
β	3.0	3.1
γ	3.5	3.4
δ	3.8	3.7
ε	3.9	3.8
ζ	4.0	3.9
Ursa Minor:
Star	My Estimated Magnitude	Actual Magnitude
α 	1.5	2.1
β	2.0	2.3
γ	3.0	3.1
δ	4.3	4.4
ε	4.5	4.3
ζ	5.0	5.0

Lyra:
Star	My Estimated Magnitude	Actual Magnitude
α 	0	0
β	3.2	3.25
γ	3.5	3.5
δ	4.2	4.2
ε	4.5	4.3

As you can see my Estimated Magnitudes weren’t far off from the Actual Magnitudes of the stars in my constellations, I had suitable precision with almost all of my stars and I believe my reference star helped me greatly with this as through using Izaar and knowing it’s magnitude I could, with a degree of accuracy, estimate effectively the actual magnitudes of the stars in my constellations.  My table of results present a reasonable successful constellation observation and would say it went reasonably well.
Evaluation:
I would say my measurements had a reasonable degree of accuracy, they were quite close to their apparent magnitudes and I was personally pretty impressed with how close I came as most were only 0.1-0.2 off their actual magnitudes.
However there were a few limitations to my observation, the biggest one was how difficult it was to observe my constellations; I suffered from a great amount of Light Pollution in my area and I struggled most of the time to get a perfectly clear nights sky as a lot of the time there was cloud cover which made it difficult for me to observe my constellations.  There was also a problem in the constellations I chose, for example Hercules was quite a difficult constellation to view and observe and sometimes I struggled to see the stars that made it up because the constellation itself is made up of a lot of stars.
To improve my project I would definitely have done my observation somewhere with a lot less light pollution, or somewhere with a more open and observable sky.  Where I viewed from I suffered greatly from light pollution, so a definite improvement for the project would be to do my observation in a much clearer area away from the city lights.  Another Improvement I would have would be choosing a different constellation over Hercules, the constellation was much too difficult and contained a great amount of stars, and this made it difficult to draw out my constellation and it was also difficult to see the stars and be able to make good estimations at their magnitudes but eventually I got them it just took a lot of time and patience.
If I was to extend my project I would look to take drawings of constellations over multiple days, weeks and months.  This would allow me to create a log of the constellations and see how they change and move in the night’s sky across a period of time and would also ensure a greater accuracy of my observations.  I could also look and observe other constellations in the nights sky or even potentially take observations of my constellations at different Latitudes and Longitudes in different locations and investigate the effect your location has on the observations of constellations.