discover the sky
my prescription for anyone who for too long hasn't examined the night sky: find halfway decent binoculars, this ultra-bitchin' free program stellarium, and get away from the city and into the country on a mostly clear night. you may find soon after that you're also noting the daytime sky, where the moon spends roughly half its time (albeit often invisible or faint). just noting the position of the sun is fun when you understand its changing apparent path.the more i've learned about astronomy, the more i respect those ancient types who even noticed the planets. without something like a laptop showing a real-time display of every significant object in the sky, it ain't easy. using some zoom binocs last night, i looked straight at saturn and, apart from it being bright as hell and apparently big, couldn't distinguish it from bright stars. the ancients discovered the planets through long assessment, giving them their type name, which means "wanderer". the strange apparent motion of the planets from earth perplexed brilliant men for many hundreds of years, but now must of us consider them conquered — nothing more to learn.
except that it was not i who conquered the knowledge of the planets. every night i look up into the sky, i'm inspired anew. new questions. new research. more hours speeding up time in stellarium (also removing the ground/atmosphere, and traveling to other planets or the sun to observe from there). just learning about the moon has kept me busy for countless hours. yet it was always there. strange how ignored these beautiful objects have become. i put up a weak but clear pair of binocs to my face last month and was in shock at how much the moon filled the view. you can stare for hours at this object, computing the shapes and relative positions of it, the sun, and earth. when you think you've the whole subject under your belt, another surprise arrives. so much i didn't know. tons i still don't.
this is my fourth attempt to blog on the subject, but each time i get bogged down in details, trying to mention and explain everything that's interesting. turns into a poorly written textbook (albeit with explanations that work better for people like me). i've changed course now, and instead merely list some subjects worth looking into if they're unfamiliar to you. BTW, astronomy's a subject for which it's reasonably safe to use wikipedia; just be skeptical (and wade through the usual state-worshiping bullshit infesting astronomy circles):
- the ecliptic
what is it? why is it a useful reference? - motion of the planets
do they all orbit in the same direction? what about rotation? what about plane? see ecliptic. - equator and poles
describe the apparent motion of the stars from the equator. the poles. where you are now. if you use stellarium, learn the shortcut keys and know what "equatorial mount" means. the equator isn't only the equator; it's the equatorial plane. parallel planes! haven't had many thrills so cool as when i finally figured out all that shit and... well, i'm embarrassed to admit this part, but WTF — i didn't understand why the moon seemed to flip sorta upside down at the end of the day. i know; i'm a douchebag. - the moon
where did it come from? why do we only see a slightly shifting view of the same face of it? what apparent path across the sky does the moon follow? is it possible to know routinely where and when the moon is by only keeping rough track of the lunar cycle? what's the timing of moonrise and moonset? is it random? what exact point of earth does the moon orbit? proportionally, how far away is it from the earth? same distance all the time? orbit speed? - the planets
what planets are inside the earth's orbit? how does that affect their angular range in earth's sky? how long does it take neptune to orbit the sun? (answer surprised the fuck out of me.) what about pluto's size and orbit period?
posted by saltypig @ 18:39
<< Home