AST-1002 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Celestial Sphere, Ecliptic, University Of Manchester
Document Summary
The daily (diaural) motion and the night sky. This is a sort of map of the sky, similar to the globe. Tallahassee is located at about 30 degrees north of the equator, and 84 degrees west of the prime meridian, which goes through greenwich, england. As we watch the stars throughout the night, they appear to rotate around polaris, since the earth rotates around its north-south axis. So, the north star (polaris) is located 30 degrees above the horizon. Just as the stars, the sun and the moon rise from the east and set to the west, due to the rotation of the earth. Position of stars relative to each other appears not to change. They seem glued to a celestial sphere which appears to rotate around the earth. The celestial equator separates the north and the south celestial hemisphere. Throughout the year, the sun changes its position on the celestial sphere, relative to the stars.
