Question about location :)

[cyroflame]

Hi guys. 2 Questions

1) I have only just gotten into astronomy and find the hole concept of objects being described in hours or degrees quite confusing!, can some please give me a dumbed down version so i can understand?

2)can any one tell me hat my location would be? and what view i will get of the sky from my location?

Many thanks, Mike

[cyroflame]

Hi guys. 2 Questions

1) I have only just gotten into astronomy and find the hole concept of objects being described in hours or degrees quite confusing!, can some please give me a dumbed down version so i can understand?

2)can any one tell me hat my location would be? and what view i will get of the sky from my location? (Shoreham by sea, west sussex)

Many thanks, Mike

[Ronseal]

Hi Cryoflame, I've just gone through exactly the same questioning, hope my answers are accurate. I'll answer in reverse if thats ok...

2)

a) Get a planisphere for the Northern Hemisphere which will detail the whole sky you can see at any particular time ie constellations visible.

Download Stellarium (google it) to load to your PC or laptop, this programme is absolutely brilliant. Read the setup instructions - basically set your lattitude & longitude then you can move around the sky & be able to see in real time (or fast forward) what you will see from your location. Get lat & long from google maps typing in your postcode.

1) If you've done one or both of the above, the most diffcult thing is to translate what you see on the PC or planisphere into the sky - The sky will look MUCH larger & distances far greater than the representation on the planisphere or PC. So, degrees are usefull in determining the distance between objects - your hand outstretched at arms length is equivalent to 20 degs of separation, your fist 10 degs, and an index finger usually larger than 1 deg - this is useful for finding objects from known reference objects such as constellations or specific stars within them.

Hope this helps & I'm not teaching you to suck eggs! lol

Chris

[Rui]

1. Here on Earth, we define a location by 2 numbers: one for it's latitude and another for it's longitude.

The latitude starts at the equator and goes up to 90ºN at the North Pole or 90ºS at the South Pole, being the angle formed by the location relative to the equator, as seen from the center of the planet.

For the latitude, it was decided that the "zero" would be the line that conects the north pole to the south pole and passes by Greenwich. They could also measure it in degrees, from 0º to 360º. Instead, it was decided that the count wold go from 0º to 180º when you go East and from 0º to -180º when you go West.

In the sky, the celestial coodinates are pretty much the same. The projection of Earth's equator defines the celestial equator and the latitude 0º. The projection of Earth's rotation axis in the sky defines the latitude 90ºN or 90ºS. For the longitude, instead of Greenwich, it was decided that the point in the sky when the apparent path of the Sun among the stars crossed the equator, from south to north, would be the starting point. And instead of counting degrees, as Earth rotates once every 24 hours (+/-), it was decided that for every 15º to the East of that point we should count 1 hour and call it the Right Ascension.

2. The sky over your head is always changing because of Earth's rotation and because of the mouvement of our planet around the Sun. In any case, you'll never be able to see any star with a southern declination higher than 90º-your latitude. For instance, if your town is located at 50º North, all the sky below -40º (or 40º South) will never get above your horizon.

To have an idea of what you can see in the sky from your location, there are good programs. Stellarium is one of the best. You can download it for free : Stellarium - Download

[Tantalus]

Have a look at this google map, Cryoflame:- Latitude and Longitude of a Point. Zoom in on where you live and this site'll tell you your exact Longitude and Latitude. You'll need to know these to get an accurate view in programs like Stellarium.