the sky at night.

[funkymoped]

hi everyone.

ive just got back from a week in SUNNY Spain. :-)

the sky was clear as a bell and the stars were shining like little diamonds.
the one thing that i cant work out is how much the stars had moved ! !
orions belt (3 stars in a line) up here in England they lie almost flat in the sky.
down in Spain they were almost vertical.
im guessing there was about 70 degrees between the English and Spanish sky. (Malaga)
the stars were viewed at roughly the same time. 7pm British time....

in plain English, can anyone explain how this works ????

[kempie]

I'm surprised that you saw so much of a difference since you had only relocated to a latitude just below 37�N. I would have expected the difference in inclination of "the belt" to match the difference in latitudes of the observation points.

Mainland UK lies roughly between 50�N and 58�30'N. Douglas, Isle of Man lies close to the midpoint at 54�15'N and only 2' off Malaga's longitude of 4�25'W. The difference in latitude between Douglas and Malaga at 36�45'N is 17�30'. Thus I would expect to see Orion's Belt rotated through only 17�30', not the 70� you claim. That amount of rotation should only be visible 16�-ish south of the Equator.

For a graphic representation of the above click here.

[kempie]

BTW the images in the link were produced from screenshots of star charts generated for each location using the Heavens-Above website...

http://www.heavens-above.com

[heathfield]

If you holiday in the tropics, you'll see the moon appearing to be lying on its back, since when you're stood there you're at a different angle to it than when you're back home, as Kempie demonstrates. We say there's a 'Man in the Moon'. In India they say there's a 'Hare in the Moon'. If you look at the full moon, and tilt your head toward your right shoulder, you'll see why.

[Toureman]

The stars didn't move at all, you did.

[funkymoped]

kempie, i stand corrected.

i have a very poor photograph of Orion. the angle was less than i quoted...... but i would say it was more than 17 degrees.
thanks peeps, i think i know why the night sky moves now !!
:-)