Lunar Eclipses

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The Farnese Atlas Ancient Roman Sculpture Records the lost star atlas of Hipparchus (125 BC) Bradley Schaffer, LSU This globe records 41 constellations accurately placed against a grid of reference circles, including the equator, tropics, Arctic circle, and Antarctic circle. As the constellation positions shift over time (due to precession as discovered by Hipparchus), the position of the constellations on the Titan's globe reveal the date of observations used by the sculptor. The Alexandria – Syene Baseline used to measure the solar system in antiquity Alexandria Syene Lunar Eclipses • A lunar eclipse occurs when the Earth passes between the Sun and Moon, with the Earth casting its shadow on the Moon giving it a dull red color Recent and Upcoming Solar Eclipses Solar Eclipse from Space How fast does that shadow move? Until Herschel, Bessel and others in the 18th C succeeded in Parallax detecting stellar parallax, its non-detection was held up as major evidence of the Earth’s place at the immovable center of the universe. The Distance to Sirius • Measured parallax angle for Sirius is 0.377 arc second • From the formula, dpc = 1/0.377 = 2.65 parsecs = 8.6 light-years The Hipparcos satellite measured parallaxes for ~1 million stars Range is limited by positional error (about 1-3 mas) -> 300 pc Planned GAIA mission will measure 1 billion GAIA Probe Lissijou figure Orbit around solar L2 1.5 million km from Earth Geometry of the Tidal Force Vector Components GMm F = cosφ P,x s2 GMm F = sinφ P,y s2 GMmR ΔF ≈ (2cosθ −sinθ) r3 Resultant Tidal force vectors Gravitational force of Differential Gravitational the Moon on the Earth force on Earth, relative to its center. .

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The Dunhuang Chinese Sky: a Comprehensive Study of the Oldest Known Star Atlas
25/02/09JAHH/v4 1 THE DUNHUANG CHINESE SKY: A COMPREHENSIVE STUDY OF THE OLDEST KNOWN STAR ATLAS JEAN-MARC BONNET-BIDAUD Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique ,Centre de Saclay, F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France E-mail: [email protected] FRANÇOISE PRADERIE Observatoire de Paris, 61 Avenue de l’Observatoire, F- 75014 Paris, France E-mail: [email protected] and SUSAN WHITFIELD The British Library, 96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB, UK E-mail: [email protected] Abstract: This paper presents an analysis of the star atlas included in the medieval Chinese manuscript (Or.8210/S.3326), discovered in 1907 by the archaeologist Aurel Stein at the Silk Road town of Dunhuang and now held in the British Library. Although partially studied by a few Chinese scholars, it has never been fully displayed and discussed in the Western world. This set of sky maps (12 hour angle maps in quasi-cylindrical projection and a circumpolar map in azimuthal projection), displaying the full sky visible from the Northern hemisphere, is up to now the oldest complete preserved star atlas from any civilisation. It is also the first known pictorial representation of the quasi-totality of the Chinese constellations. This paper describes the history of the physical object – a roll of thin paper drawn with ink. We analyse the stellar content of each map (1339 stars, 257 asterisms) and the texts associated with the maps. We establish the precision with which the maps are drawn (1.5 to 4° for the brightest stars) and examine the type of projections used.
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