Visual Astronomy: Stars and Planets Overview

1. Lecture 2 : Visual Astronomy -- Stars and Planets Robert Fisher

2. Items • Add/Drop Day • Office Hours Vote • 5 PM Tuesday • 5 PM Thursday • 12 Noon Friday • Course Webpage • Questions

3. Review of Lecture 1 • Astronomy is an ancient subject, passed down from Greek to Islamic scholars, and transmitted back to the west. • Our systems of thought evolve with time at an almost imperceptibly slow pace, and continue to do so today. • The universe is thought to have begun with a big bang, and is expanding. • The cosmic calendar varies over fantastically-long timescales. We are very recent newcomers onto the cosmic scene. • We are all stardust.

4. Overview of Lecture 2 • I. The Celestial Sphere • II. The Stars • IiI. The Motion of the Planets

5. Important Lessons to be Learned • Because the stars are very distant, their motion on the sky is well-described as if they revolved around the Earth • The motion of the planets is significantly more complex, and required elaborate geometrical constructions in the ancient geocentric system due to Ptolemy • Johannes Kepler’s three laws of planetary motion captures most features of planetary motion extremely well in a heliocentric model

6. Motion of the Stars • The foundation of all visual astronomy is a simple fact : the Earth is a Sphere • While common knowledge today, determination of the shape of the Earth was a significant challenge to ancient peoples • The most convincing elementary argument comes from the fact that the Earth’s shadow (as seen in lunar eclipses) is always circular, as Aristotle correctly deduced Earth Image, Apollo 17 Crew

7. Celestial Sphere, Zenith, Nadir, Horizon • The distant stars appear to lie on a solid sphere, the celestial sphere. • The zenith is the direction directly upwards. • The nadir is the direction directly downwards. • The horizon splits the celestial sphere in half along the zenith-nadir axis.

8. Zenith and Nadir Depend on Your Location • The zenith and nadir directions depend on where one stands on the Earth.

9. Motion of the Celestial Sphere • The rotation of the Earth causes the celestial sphere to appear to revolve. • The north/south celestial poles correspond to the north/south poles of the Earth’s rotational axis.

10. The Motion of the Sun • At a given location, the sun rises towards the east and sets towards the west. • A sundial gnomon casts a shadow away from the sun, towards the west. • The invention of the gnomon is attributed to the ancient Greek philosopher Animaxander, successor to Thales

11. Determining North from the Sun’s Motion • At noon, the sun reaches its highest point in the sky, directly north. • This was a common method used by the ancients to determine North.

12. Clockwise • In the afternoon, the sun begins to set in the west, following the same circular arc traced in the morning. • The direction traced by the sun in its arc, facing north, is clockwise.

13. Great Circle Great circle A great circle on a sphere divides the sphere into two hemispheres. One can imagine the equator as an example of a great circle, but any circle dividing the sphere is a great circle.

14. Angles • Separation between two points on the celestial sphere are measured in terms of angle. • A full circle is 360 degrees. • Each degree is 60 minutes. • The full moon is roughly one-half degree in width. • By remarkable circumstance, the width of the sun is also one-half degree. • Each minute is 60 seconds -- sometimes referred to as arcseconds.

15. The Meridian • The great circle on the celestial sphere found by connecting north and south and passing through the zenith is referred to as the meridian. • When a celestial body crosses the meridian, it is said to transit. • When a body transits, it reaches its highest point from the horizon. • The terms “AM” and “PM” derive their meaning from the meridian : • AM = Ante-Meridian • PM = Post-Meridian

16. The North Celestial Pole and Circumpolar Stars • Looking north from Chicago at night, one can see the North Celestial Pole. • The North Celestial Pole is the direction along which the Earth’s axis is aligned. • The stars which immediately surround the pole never set beneath the horizon. They are called circumpolar stars.

17. Star Trails Over Mauna Kea, Hawaii

18. Daily Motion of the Stars • The daily motion of the stars Is very simple. • The celestial sphere makes one full circle about the Earth, once per day. • The circle is determined by only angle -- the declination.

19. Question • In the Northern hemisphere, the stars rise in the East, set in the West, and revolve counter-clockwise around the North celestial pole. In the southern hemisphere the stars rise in the • A) East, set in the West, and revolve anti-clockwise around the South celestial pole. • B) East, set in the West, and revolve clockwise around the South celestial pole. • C) West, set in the East, and revolve clockwise around the South celestial pole. • D) West, set in the East, and revolve anti-clockwise around the South celestial pole.

20. View from North Pole • At the north pole, the zenith is the north celestial pole. • The nadir is the south celestial pole. • The horizon is the celestial equator. • Precisely half of the celestial sphere is visible. • All stars are circumpolar.

21. View from Equator • The zenith is the celestial equator. • The north celestial pole always appears directly north. • The full sky is visible -- each star rises for 12 hours each day.

22. View from Chicago • The altitude of the north celestial poleis equal to the latitude of your position on the Earth - roughly 42 degrees for Chicago. • Stars within 42 degrees of the north celestial pole are circumpolar. • Stars within 42 degrees of the south celestial pole are not visible.

23. Summary of Celestial Sphere Viewed fom Earth

24. Question • The celestial equator is : • A) The path of the sun compared with the stars. • B) The path of the moon compared with the stars. • C) The average path of planets on the sky. • D) Always directly overhead at the Earth’s equator. • E) Always along the horizon at the Earth’s equator.

25. Constellations • Constellations are the “states” on maps of the celestial sphere. • Each region of the sky belongs to precisely one constellation. • Stars within each region are alphabetically named, starting with the brightest stars, by a greek letter followed by the constellation name -- eg, Polaris is Alpha Ursae Minoris.

26. The Ecliptic • The sun appears to move along a plane in the sky referred to as the ecliptic. • The other planets also appear to move close to the ecliptic. • Physically, the fact that all solar system bodies lie close to the ecliptic is because everything lies within a flattened disk.

27. The Solstices and Equinoxes • The solstices occur when the sun reaches a maximum (solstice = sol sistere or sun stops in Latin) in declination -- roughly June 21 and December 21. • The equinoxes occur when the sun intersects the celestial equator -- roughly March 21 and September 21. On this day, the sun appears directly above the equator, and every point on earth has equal day and night.

28. Earth on Equinoxes

29. Yearly Sky and Zodiac • As the sun moves through the ecliptic, different portions of the night sky become observable. • The ecliptic falls into 12 constellations over the year -- the zodiac.

30. Angle of Inclination of Earth • The ecliptic makes an angle of 23.5 degrees with the celestial equator. • Physically, this means the Earth’s rotational axis is tilted with respect to its orbit.

31. Angle of Inclination • As the Earth orbits around the sun, the angle of inclination remains the same.

32. Origin of Seasons • The angle of inclination causes seasonal variation on Earth.

33. Question • The ecliptic makes its smallest angle with the southern horizon during the • A) Summer • B) Autumn • C) Winter • D) Spring

34. Lunar Phases • The appearance of the moon varies over the course of the month.

35. Eclipses • The lunar orbit is inclined by 5 degrees relative to that of the Earth/sun. • Solar eclipses can occur during the new moon, but only when the sun, moon, and Earth happen to line up. • Similarly, lunar eclipses can occur during the full moon, but only when the sun, Earth, and moon happen to line up.

36. Lunar Eclipses • The moon passes through the shadow of the Earth. • Light is fully blocked in the umbra, and only partially blocked in the penumbra.

37. Types of Lunar Eclipses • Three types of Lunar eclipses.

38. Lunar Eclipses

39. Lunar Eclipses from Moon

40. Solar Eclipses • Solar eclipses occur when the sun’s light is blocked by the moon. • In a sense, they are completely serendipitous : the sun is 400 times larger than the moon, but is also 400 times further away. • Hence, the apparent angular size of both the moon and the sun are nearly identical.

41. Solar Eclipses • Three types of solar eclispes can occur.

42. August 11, 1999 Eclipse Viewed from Mir

43. Solar Eclipses, 1999 - 2020 • Both lunar and solar eclipses recur with a frequency of 18 years, 11 days, known as the Saros cycle. • The Saros cycle was known to the ancient Babylonians, and was probably used by Thales to predict the eclipse of May 18, 584 BC.

44. The Planets

45. The Motion of Planets • Like the stars, the planets are generally seen to traverse the sky. • Unlike the stars, occasionally the planets are observed to stop and move from west-to-east in so-called retrograde motion. • This behavior gave rise to the ancient greek name -- “planets” comes from a Greek root meaning “wanderer”. • A fully satisfactory explanation of this motion was not developed until Newton.

46. Retrograde Motion • The mystery of retrograde motion can be explained relatively simply in a heliocentric model of the solar system. • An inner bod y (like the Earth) is moving more rapidly than an outer body (like Mars), and so will “pass” it like a faster car on the expressway. • During this passing, the outer planet will execute retrograde motion.

47. Ptolemaic Model of the Solar System • The ancient astronomer Ptolemy (90 - 168 AD) created the most complex version of the geocentric model of the system, which was used for almost one and a half millenia. • In the Ptolemaic model, the moon, sun, and planets all revolved in circles, which themselves revolved around circles around the Earth. • And in fact, the Earth was not quite at the center of this model, either.

48. Why Did the Ancients Reject a Heliocentric Model of the Solar System? • In the heliocentric model, due to the motion of the Earth about the sun, the motion of the nearest stars should appear to vary with respect to the more distant stars. • This effect is called parallax. • The ancients attempted to measure this effect, but failed. In fact, because the stars are so distant, it is only detectable with telescopic measurements.

49. Phases of Venus • In 1610, Galileo used the telescope to observe the phases of Venus for the first time from the Earth. • The phases only made sense if Venus orbited the Sun, not the Earth. • This proved to be a “smoking gun” in favor of the heliocentric model.