PHYS 1040 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Celestial Spheres, Constellation
2 Sep 2016
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Astronomy lecture #2 9/1/2016: the celestial sphere. The 88 official constellations cover the whole celestial sphere: the milky way. A band of light that makes a complete circle around the celestial sphere. Our view into the plane of our galaxy. The milky way lies in the galactic plane and makes a complete circle around the celestial sphere: the local sky our view of the celestial sphere. Stars no matter how distant, are pictured as being on a single crystalline sphere. We only view half of the celestial sphere at a time, if you are on the equator you can see all the stars throughout the year: horizon. Boundary between earth & sky: zenith. We can measure the using angles: meridian. Line connecting north and south points on the horizon that passes through the zenith: angular size. Angular size = physical size x 360 degrees/ 2pi x distance: why do stars rise and set.
