Hoover Dam
There is a sculpture by Oskar Hanson that shows the location of the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter Saturn, and several stars at the exact time of the Dedication of the dam on September 30, 1935. It is in the terrazzo floor of the bronze sculptures.
There is a sculpture by Oskar Hanson that shows the location of the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter Saturn, and several stars at the exact time of the Dedication of the dam on September 30, 1935. It is in the terrazzo floor of the bronze sculptures.
Winged Figures of the Republic
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Vega
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Capella
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Aldebaran
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Arcturus
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Moon
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Jupiter
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 Sun and Mercury
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Find Venus, Mars and Saturn when you visit there. |
Sextant Lessons
at sea we use the horizon for a reference point
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on land we use an Artificial Horizon and divide the reading by 2
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Peru - Machu Picchu
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if you stay at Machu Picchu a second day you can hike the Inca Trail for about 2 miles to the Sun Gate (Inti Punku) where, on the first day of summer (June 21) the Sun rises between the two columns and shines through the window of the Sun Temple and lights up the altar in the temple.
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the Transit of VENUS 2012
New York Thruway, June, 2012
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Venus transiting the Sun
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Venus transits the Sun twice every 121 years. The latest event was 2004 and 2012. In 1769 over 100 expeditions observed the transits from opposite sides of the Earth in order to calculate the distance to Venus.
Giant Sundials in Italian Cathedrals
Astronomers call them MERIDIAN LINES and the Italians call them GNOMONS, but they were all used to determine when Easter would occur and were used to create the Gregorian Calendar in 1582.
Ste. Sulpice, Paris, France
Greece
This is METON's sundial in Athens. In 500 BC he determined the length of the year to be 365 and 5/19 days long, today we use 365 and 1/4 days. He also created the Metonic Calendar which is 19 years long and is based on the time it takes the Earth, Sun and Moon to return to the same position. This is the same calendar that was used by the Mayan's 1500 years later in South America and 7000 miles away. Remember when the World was supposed to end on December 21, 2012, that was only the last day of a Metonic Period and the start of a new calendar.
Prime Meridians
A PRIME MERIDIAN is an arbitrary starting point to measure LONGITUDE on the Earth. When measuring LATITUDE, everyone uses the North and South Poles and the Equator as the starting point. Prior to 1886 each country on Earth used their own Observatories' as the Prime Meridian for Longitude for all maps produced in that country. This was done because nations were constantly at war with each other and could not depend on the astronomic tables published by their enemy. Today everyone uses Greenwich, England (a suburb of London) as the Prime Meridian. Here are some photos of various Observatories I have visited that once served as their country's Prime Meridian.
Royal Observatory, Greenwich, England. This is the current PRIME MERIDIAN for the World
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After the Revolutionary war, Thomas Jefferson wanted a complete break from England, including NOT using the Prime Meridian in Greenwich. He established the United States Meridian at the intersection of the White House entrance and the Capitol entrance. Today it is marked with a Stone about 200 yards West of the Washington Monument.
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Royal Observatory, Madrid, Spain
RoundTower, Copenhagen, Denmark
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Royal Observatory, Paris, France
secondary observatory in foreground and Main Observatory in background. Athens, Greece
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Monte Mario, Rome, Italy
Mason Dixon line
Resetting a broken stone on the Mason-Dixon Line
Star Parties
Grand Canyon Star Party, South Rim, next event June 9-15
, 2018
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Big Pine Key, Florida .
next event Feb. 12-18, 2018
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New England Astronomy Forum, Suffern, NY next event April 20-21, 2018
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Star Gazing and Naked Eye Observations
Using a Green Laser Pointer the Planets and Constellations are easily identified
METEOR SHOWERS are the dust trails of comets that crossed the Earth's orbit. Their location is stationary so we pass through them at the same time each year. The showers are named after the constellation where their RADIANT POINT appears in the sky. All the "shooting stars" appear to come from a single point in the sky, so if you know where to look, you will see many more meteors. Also, if you are looking 2 hours before sunrise you will see many more than if you are looking 2 hours before midnight. It is much like looking at a snowstorm through the front windshield of a car and the same view out the back window.
 Image Credit: CC Wikipedia / Anton 2005
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How to find the PLANETS
Draw an imaginary arc in the sky from the point of sunrise to the point of sunset. This is the ECLIPTIC and the planets will always be in this narrow band in the sky. Remember that the location of sunrise and sunset changes as the Earth moves in it's orbit around the Sun. The old saying "stars twinkle and the Planets shine" may help a little, but it is better to use a star gazing website or a smartphone app.
I am familiar with and can help you find these constellations and stars
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Island of Hven, between Denmark and Sweden
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Spain |
Barcelona Observatory
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This device records the number of hours of sunlight each day by burning a paper chart when the sun shines through the glass ball
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Total Solar Eclipse, Aruba, 1998
Totality included a large temperature drop as well as thunder and lightning
Total Solar Eclipse, Egypt, 2006
Total Solar Eclipse, Sahara Desert, March 29, 2006
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watch out for Scorpions
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make sure you take a flashlight to go to the porta-potty at night
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the grommets in the dining room tent roof acted like pinhole cameras projecting crescent suns on the carpets on the sand
Total Solar Eclipse, Wyoming, 2017
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SunSpotter
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4 inch telescope with Solar Filter
make a sign out of cardboard and use an icepick to poke the letters
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hold your Smartphone camera up to the eyepiece
Partial Eclipse taken with a Smartphone
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each hole makes an image of the crescent SUN
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This amazing photo taken by Madeleine Westall shows the SHADOW of the moon (on a clear cloudless day) moving toward us at 1,400 miles per hour just prior to Totality
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Paris, France
The Arago Line in Paris is marked by 136 brass disks set at random distances along the Paris Meridiam
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A typical disk, there is even one at the entrance to the Lovure and one inside the North Galleries too
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Ste. Sulpice, Paris has a Meridian Line that was used to measure the Tilt of the Earth's Axis
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This Meridian Line runs sideways across the church and up a monument on the North wall
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Descriptions of the locations of all disks are available online, This one by Chris Molloy is especially good.
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Egypt
The Great Pyramids and all the Temples are oriented exactly East and West, such as this one in Luxor
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Cruise ship work
nightly stargazing, sextant lessons, and lectures.
Transatlantic - May 2013
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a busy day - 12:00pm Sextant Lessons, 2:15pm Lecture, 9:30pm Star Gazing
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12:30pm Sextant Lessons and 2:00pm Vietnam and PTSD (this was Veterans Day 2013)
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9:30pm Star Gazing on deck 16
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Lee, Massachusetts
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I created a Sundial that not only tells the Time of Day but also the Day of the Year. The data used is only good for the Latitude of my house (42-18-40 North)
Each horizontal line is 3 weeks apart and each vertical line is a half-hour apart
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Each position on the grid represents two days of the year. So 2:00pm on April 7th is the same as 2:00pm on September 5th and 10:00am on November 18 is the same position as 10:00am on January 25th
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Questions and comments
email to garytheastronomer@gmail.com