The One with the Fourth Astronomy Class 🌙🌎💫☄️

● 4.1
● Great circle is any circle on the surface of a sphere whose center is at the center
of the sphere.
● Meridian- great circles that pass through both the North and South Poles. Each
of this circles is called a meridian; they are each perpendicular to the equator,
crossing it at right angles.
● Declination and right ascension are fixed positions on the celestial sphere

● Right ascension
○ east/west coordinate
○ 0 hours at the vernal equinox (the intersection of the ecliptic and the
celestial equator where the sun is moving northward)
● Declination
○ north/south coordinate
○ 0º at the celestial equator
● Right ascension - hours (h), minutes(m) and seconds (s).
● Declination - degrees ( ° ), minutes ( ' ), and seconds ( " ), with 90° equivalent to
1
⁄4 circle.
● Declination is stated in degrees (each degree of declination is 1/360 of a full
circle)

● Astronomers measure how far apart objects appear in the sky by using angles.
● 360° in a circle-a circle stretching around the celestial sphere contains 360°.
● The half- sphere or dome of the sky then contains 180° from horizon to opposite
horizon.
● The full Moon is about half a degree across.

● Using this system of right ascension and declination, an astronomer can map the
sky just as a geographer uses longitude and latitude to map the globe.

● 4.2
● Combination of day length and sunlight angle gives seasons
● Time from one vernal equinox to next is tropical year
● Summer solstice - most hours of daylight, least hours of nighttime (June 21st)
○ At summer solstice, the sun is directly above the tropic of cancer (23.5ºN)
● Winter solstice - most hours of nighttime, least hours of daylight (December 21st)
● The apparent path of the sun in the sky varies by latitude

● 4.3
● Daily cycle, noon to noon, is diurnal motion - solar day (one complete rotation of
earth)
● Stars aren’t in quite the same place 24 hours later
● Due to Earth’s rotation around the Sun; when they are in the same place again,
one sidereal day has passed.
● 1 complete rotation of Earth around its axis takes 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4.1
seconds (solar day)
● Sidereal day is also 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4.1 seconds by definition.
● Solar day is longer than the sidereal day

● 4.4
● keeps track of time over long spans of time
● anticipate the cycle of the seasons and to honor special religious or personal
anniversaries.
● useful to a large number of people
● must use natural time intervals that everyone can agree on (defined by the
motions of Earth, the Moon..).

● 4.5
● New moon to new moon takes 28 days
● Because it is a sphere, ½ is always lit by the sun
● Phase of the moon is how much we see illuminated from earth
● The phase we see depends on
○ What direction the sunlight is hitting it
○ The angle we see that from
● Sun moon and earth in a line
● Appears to be as close to the sun as it can
● Moon is between Earth and sun
○ We see only the unlit side
● It travels across the sky with the sun
○ It’s up during the day
● At new moon the moon stays near the sun, so it rises at sunrise and sets at
sunset
● After a couple of days moved at bit to the East
● We are seeing it at a slightly different angle
● See a very thin crescent, with the horns of the crescent pointing away from the
sun
● Still close to sun rising 1-2 hours after sunrise, up all day, sets after sunset
● Low over western horizon, sets soon after sun
● A few days later, crescent is getting thicker
● It is getting wider - “waxing crescent moon”
● 7 days after new moon, moon is not ¼ of the way around its orbit
● It is 90 degrees from the sun, we see right down the terminator
● We see half of the moon lit
 ○ Called “first quarter” because it is ¼ of the way around its orbit
● Gibbus-convex or swollen
● Rises late afternoon and is up most of the night
● 2 weeks after new moon, it is now ½ way through it orbit
● Opposite the sun in the sky, this the full moon
● Because it is opposite the sun it rises at sunset and sets at sunrise
● Continues to rise and set later as it goes around in its cycle
● We go through the same phases but in the opposite direction
● The full moon is shrinking
● 3 weeks after new moon and a week after full moon –third quarter
○ Once again half lit
○ Side that was lit during 1st quarter is now dark and visa versa
● It rises at midnight and sets at noon
● A few days later is it just a crescent again, a waning crescent
● Rises a couple of hours before sunrise and sets a couple of hours before sunset
● Then finally we get back to where we started.

● The Moon’s sidereal period—that is, the period of its revolution about Earth
measured with respect to the stars—sidereal month is 27.3217 days
● The time interval in which the phases repeat—is the solar month (synodic),
29.5306 days.
Continuing at 4.7 on thursday