Please help a newbie!

[njlw226]

I'm looking for someone who can answer a few questions for me on celestial navigation, along with the First Point of Aries. Should be just a couple quick and easy questions for an expert. Would someone mind sending me an email to nickjacoby@hotmail.com?

I would be forever grateful!

Nick:)

[Steep]

Ask your questions here, then everybody benefits from the knowledge.

[Black Knight]

Nick,

I can;t help on your question, but you might want to edit your email address to read: nickjacoby [at] hotmail [dot] com. You know, just in case of spambots

[njlw226]

Thanks for the responses, I'll ask my questions here. I'm working on a riddle of sorts that deals with this topic and was hoping someone could translate this for me...these aren't the exact words, but good enough:

"Start at the first point of Aries. The sky stretches west to east in front of you. Your Navigational Star is directly ahead, and beckons you east."

Does this make any sense at all to anyone?

Thanks!!

[Black Knight]

Not to me! Perhaps someone else will be able to help

[661-pete]

"Start at the first point of Aries. The sky stretches west to east in front of you. Your Navigational Star is directly ahead, and beckons you east."

A riddle indeed! Assuming it's to be looked at from an astronomical viewpoint, the First Point of Aries is not in fact in Aries, but in Pisces, an unremarkable point somewhere below the Square of Pegasus (visible to the south after midnight at this time of year). There are no particularly bright stars nearby: the riddle could be referring to one of the Pegasus stars, or even to Fomalhaut although that last is a long way further south (and difficult to observe from much of Britain).

I'll have to think about this...

[ronin]

FPA is where the sun crosses the celestrial equator on March 20 it is the time of the equinox.

It is then defined as RA = 0, Dec = 0.

So I think you need to get the equinox (March one) time and enter RA=0, Dec=0 into something like stellarium to get the sky at that time.

Just wondering if the answer is the Sun? It might be due East

[steelfixer]

Surely if the sky is streching west to east in front of you then you must be looking east already.

The navagating star is always Polaris.

Is that all there is to this riddle or is there more to come.

[Steep]

I think if the sky is stretching West to East in front of you then you're facing North, that would certainly put Polaris in front of you.

[brantuk]

"Start at the first point of Aries. The sky stretches west to east in front of you. Your Navigational Star is directly ahead, and beckons you east."

If the sky is west to east in front of you and you're looking up then you're facing north. Having a star directly ahead beckoning you east is contrary to the directoin you're facing - 90 degrees contrary in fact. So imho the sentence is nonsense.

If this turns out to be astrology related I'll be a tad miffed lol

[brantuk]

Hmmm.... thinks twice......

Just been reading this: Equinox - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Look at the section titled: "Day arcs of the Sun"

At the equinox the sun could indeed be directly ahead of you when looking north. Hope it helps