Don’t expect to see all these features in the twilight. But it’s good to understand that, on the morning side of our planet, you are facing forward (toward the point marked “Earth’s direction of travel”) in our journey around the Sun, and that the giant planets are ahead in their far more distant circles. And so is the Moon as, at its Last Quarter stage, it cuts in front of us like a queue-jumper. Other than Jupiter and Saturn, you might just pick out the reddish twinkle of Antares.
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Your diagram of the morning sky is another reminder that I need to get out early enough to image the scene of the two gas giants in Capricornus, as a post-script to their conjunction last December. Good thing I don’t have to get up so early now to do that since we’re finally on DST LOL!
The other reminder your diagram suggests, being that it is early April 2021, is that the second great American eclipse is now only 3 years away (April 8, 2024). I hope Bill Gates hasn’t been able to implement his idiotic idea of blocking out the Sun before then so we can continue to enjoy natural phenomena such as eclipses. Talk about “Loonacy” …
Love this crisp observation!
So right now we are heading “down” towards the southern zodiac – hurtling towards Sag and Sco for summer. The Sun will appear high in the sky because we have gone “under” it in relation to the equator.
At least that’s the way I have come to prefer to think about the seasons. I never really “got” the “tilt of the Earth causes the seasons.” I find it easier to visualize the celestial equator as the flat plane and make the ecliptic the tilted plane.
The main pedagogical reason for me is that Polaris teaches the celestial equator more directly than the Zodiac teaches the ecliptic.
That’s interesting, it’s just the opposite for me, much easier to find the ecliptic than the celestial equator. The planets are always on the ecliptic. The Moon is never more than five degrees north or south of the ecliptic, and usually less. I learned the zodiacal constellations first, and eventually learned the path of the ecliptic through each. To find the equator from Polaris you need to be able to mark off 90 degrees. If you can do that within 10 degrees five times in a row in different parts of the sky, without using a sextant, I’ll buy you a drink (using known stars that are close to the equator would be cheating).
While it makes sense to me to visualize the Earth orbiting the Sun with her axis tilted 23.5 degrees from the perpendicular, I’ll try seeing it your way, with the ecliptic swooping north and south from the equator. Half the fun of astronomy is learned different ways of visualizing the cosmos.
Whoops. In the last sentence, “learned” should be “learning”.
Hi Anthony!
That is a good challenge (find the equator without reference to equatorial stars).
However, I really just mean that when learning the “cause of the seasons” (from a pedagogy point of view) that the “tilt of the Earth causes the seasons” was an arbitrary decision that some unknown educator made many years ago. I advocate reversing this longtime trend.
In my opinion (and I realize this goes against hundreds of years of teaching patterns) it is more straightforward to understand the Sun as a kind of “oven broiler” that we Earth-bound residents alternately ride “under” and “over.” When we are riding under the broiler it is summer, when we are over it (and the Earth’s spherical mass blocks the energy) it is winter.
For me, there are fewer mental 3D transformations to imagine that the yearly orbit of the Earth is on a tilted “track” that goes up and down over the year and that Polaris is the axis of daily rotation than to imagine that the orbit is flat and the Earth somehow remains spinning and tilted at the same time. I imagine the Earth as a spinning top (spinning like a normal top vertically straight up-and-down) and then imagine the top itself staying “vertical” while it travels along the up-and-down track of the orbit.
It’s quixotic to think this could be adapted as the new “correct” way to teach the seasons, I know, but it really is a more direct way to talk about the equator and the ecliptic, the sphere of the Earth, and how the Sun causes the seasons to move from north to south and back again.
Dan, I think you’re right in this sense. If I look at (or imagine) a globe of the Earth, it’s fairly easy to imagine it standing upright and spinning as it travels around a journey on a sloping surface (the ecliptic).
Hi Guy! Yes, it was your schematic – included in the Zodiac Wavy Charts – that started me thinking along these lines in the first place. Thanks!
Thanks for the clarification Dan. I see how you’re looking at it. The globes in my childhood home and my elementary school classrooms were all mounted on metal frames that tilted the poles 23.5 degrees from vertical, so I guess I just got used to seeing the Earth that way.
Ultimately we’re talking about geocentric vs. heliocentric perspectives.
Thanks for the diagram. I noticed the moon by Scorpius on my morning jog Thursday. I’ll start looking for Jupiter and Saturn on my next run.
I happened to be studying Seasons in the Astro Companion. Here’s another theory on All Fools Day, from An “Uncommon History of Common Things” by National Geographic. France began using the reformed Gregorian calendar in the late 16th century, moving New Year’s Day from March 25th to January 1. They still celebrated the original New Year for one week starting on March 25th,, capped off by a day of merriment on April 1st. Pranks were played on the gullible people who had a hard time remembering that the date for New Year’s had shifted. Such people were called poissons d’avro (April fish), because like newly hatched fish, they were easily caught.
We had a crystal clear sky last night (3 April) for the Easter Vigil, with Crux shining brightly above us as the Easter fire was lit. When we emerged from the church in the early hours of the morning the Milky Way was absolutely beautiful.
Easter Sunday has dawned clear and chilly.
Thanks, Guy! I plan on rising early to see this. We are finally receiving some beautiful clear skies at long last. : )
The best,
Kathleen