Celestial Sphere

Astronomical Longitude and Latitude

What we see in the sky

What astronomical objects do we see in the sky? Where are they in the general
context of the overview of the Universe?
  With the naked eye, the main astronomical objects we can see are the Sun, the
Moon, the stars, and some of the planets.
 All of the stars we see are in the Milky Way galaxy, most of them relatively
close to the Sun.
 The stars we see in the sky come in a range of brightness, partly because stars
come in different intrinsic brightness, and partly because some are closer than
others.
 When we look at an astronomical object ``by eye'', we can't tell just by looking
how far away it is (because not all objects have the same intrinsic brightness).
All we can see is what direction it is in.
 As a result, when looking ``by eye'', the positions of stars on the sky are
described by their direction only; you can imagine that the sky is a big sphere
with astronomical objects located at different positions on it. This is called
the celestial sphere
o The positions of the stars can be described with a sort of astronomical
longitude and latitude, called right ascension and declination.
 Constellations are patterns of stars seen in the sky. However, although the stars
in any constellation are all in the same general direction in the sky, the different
stars in a constellation may be at very different distances from Earth,
hence constellations may not be real associations of stars in space, just stars in
the same general direction as seen from Earth.
 Only the nearest galaxies are visible to the naked eye, as relatively faint
smudges of light, although two of the very nearest galaxies, the Magellanic
Clouds, are visible are moderately large clouds from the Southern hemisphere.


Motions in the sky

 Observing and understanding motions in the sky is what led people to
understand the layout of the Solar System, and to understand how the Earth
moves in space.
 Objects can appear to move in the sky either because they are actually moving,
or because they reflect our motion through space
 o For stars, almost all apparent motion comes from reflex motion, because
they are so far away that their intrinsic motion appears very small.
o For planets, apparent motion in the sky comes from a combination of
their intrinsic motion (around the Sun) and their reflex motion.
 The rotation of the Earth on its axis causes all objects to appear to move around the sky
once each day. The apparent motion of a star to an observer which arises from the Earth's
rotation depends on the location of the observer on Earth, and the location of the star
relative to Earth's rotation axis.

 Stars appear to travel in circles around the celestial sphere. Objects near the
poles travel in small circles; far from the poles, they travel in large circles.
 The orientation of the circles as seen by observers depends on their latitude
on Earth. Depending on your location, some stars are visible all of the time,
others rise and set, and some are never visible. (Note that when I say visible all
of the time, I mean they could be seen in the sky all the time if sunlight didn't
overwhelm them during daylight!).
  Day and night occur because of the same rotation of the Earth, which makes the
Sun appear to move around the sky once each day.
 The motion of the stars and the Sun can be used to tell time. We define a day to
be the length of time it takes for the Sun to come back to the same position in
the sky.
o It takes about 24 hours for the stars to return back to the same position in
the sky. Consequently, one can measure time by the fractional distance a
star has gone in its full circle around the sky. This is best done for stars
which never set, i.e., stars near the north celestial pole. It is made easier
because there happens to be a star located almost at the location of the
pole, called the North Star.

Although the orbit of the Moon is tilted with respect to the plane of the Earth's rotation, at certain
times of year the Moon can be in the same plane as the Earth and the Sun around new or full
moon, and when this happens, we can get eclipses. Eclipses occur when one astronomical body
moves into the shadow cast by a second astronomical body.

 A lunar eclipse can occur at full moon when the Moon moves through the
shadow of the Earth, if all three objects (Sun, Earth, Moon) are in the same plane.
 A solar eclipse can occur at new moon when the Moon's shadow falls upon the
Earth, if all three objects (Sun, Moon, Earth) are in the same plane.
 We don't see an eclipse every month because the plane of the Moon's orbit
is slightly tilted with respect to the plane of the Earth's orbit around the Sun.
 Since the Earth is larger than the Moon, during a lunar eclipse the moon fits
entirely in the Earth's shadow, and an eclipse can be seen from all over the Earth.
However, during a solar eclipse, the Moon's shadow only falls on a portion of the
Earth, so each solar eclipse can be seen only from some portion of the Earth.

Apparent motion of the planets

 Now consider the planets. We consider the apparent motion and appearance of
planets because they provide a good exercise in visualization, and also because
observations of planetary motions were very important historically in helping
us to come to understand how objects move in the Solar System, as we'll
discuss shortly. The planets also move around the Sun. Because of this and also
because of the reflex motion from the Earth's revolution, the planets also appear
to move with respect to the stars.
o The qualitative motions of the planets can be understood if one
recognizes that:
  All of the planets move around the Sun in roughly the same plane
 All of the planets move around the Sun in the same direction
 The planets which are nearer to the Sun move faster than those
which are farther away
o The apparent motion of a planet arises from:
 The planet is moving around the Sun (intrinsic motion)
 The Earth is rotating around its axis (reflex motion).
o The motion can be complex, exhibiting retrograde motion, which occurs
when the planet appears to move backwards in its normal path.
Retrograde motion occurs because the apparent motion of planets arises
from a combination of their intrinsic motion and the reflex motion which
appears because Earth is moving.

o
 The inner planets (Mercury and Venus) show retrograde motion
because they are moving around the Sun, and we are viewing this
motion from outside of their orbits. For half of their years, they
appear to move in one direction as seen from Earth; for the other
half, they appear to move in the other direction.
 The outer planets show retrograde motion because the Earth
moves around the Sun faster than the outer planets, and thus it
will periodically pass the outer planets in their orbits. When this
happens, the planets will appear to reverse direction when seen
from Earth.
o The time of day that we can see different planets depends on whether
they are closer to the Sun than Earth (Mercury and Venus) or farther (all
other planets)
o Because we see planets in reflected light, they have phases; not all of the
sunlit half can be seen from Earth at all times. Different planets have
different phases in which they can be seen, depending on whether the
planet is closer or further from the Sun than the Earth.