ASTR 111 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Nicolaus Copernicus, Celestial Equator, De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium
28 Nov 2016
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Document Summary
Direct evidence of our senses supports a geocentric perspective. We see only half of this sphere at one time. The sun"s annual path on the celestial sphere is the ecliptic. Celestial sphere is organized into 88 constellations. Ancient greeks such as aristotle recognized that earth and the moon are spheres. Eratosthenes measured the size of earth with surprising precision. Hipparchus carried out many astronomical observations: making a star catalog, defining the system of stellar magnitudes, discovering precession from the apparent shift in the position of the north celestial pole. The ancient religion of astrology began in babylonia. Natalastrology is based on the assumption that the positions of the planets at the time of our birth determine our future. Modern tests clearly show that there is no evidence for this. Nicolaus copernicus introduced the heliocentric cosmology to renaissance europe in his book de revolutionibus. Galileo was the father of both modern experimental physics and telescopic astronomy.
