Star position in the sky is defined by a pair of angles.

These two angles - which refer to the celestial equator - are called declination (abbrev. or Dec) and right ascension ( or RA).

While is given in degrees (kkfrom +90 at the celestial north pole to -90 at the south pole), is usually given in hours (0 ... 24h). This is due to the observation technique of star transits, which cross the eyepiece of telescopes because of the Earth's rotation. The observation techniques are topics of position astronomy and of astrogeodesy. A Star transit is the passage of a star through the eyepiece of an telescope. Ideally the two-dimensional coordinate system , refers to an inertial frame of reference; the 3rd coordinate is the star distance which normally is used as an attribute of the individual star. Star positions are changing in time, caused by
1. precession and nutation - slow tilts of the Earth's axis with rates of 50" resp. 2" per year 2. aberration and parallax - effects of the Earth's orbit around the sun 3. proper motion of the individual stars.

The effects 1 and 2 are considered by so called mean places of stars, contrary to their apparent places as seen from the moving Earth. Usually the mean places refer to a special epoch, e.g. 1950.0 or 2000.0. The 3rd effect has to be handled individually. The star positions , are compiled in several star catalogues of different volume and accuracy. Absolute and very precise coordinates of 1000-3000 stars are collected in Fundamental catalogues, starting with the FK (Berlin ~1890) up to the modern FK6. Relative coordinates of numerous stars are collected in catalogues like the Bonner Durchmusterung (Germany 1852-1862, 200.000 rough positions), the SAO catalogue (USA 1966, 250.000 astrometric stars) or the Hipparcos and Tycho catalogue (110.000 and 2 million stars by space astrometry). In astronomy, declination (abbrev. dec or ) is one of the two coordinates of the equatorial coordinate system, the other being either right ascension or hour angle. Declination in astronomy is comparable to geographic latitude, but projected onto the celestial sphere. Declination is

measured in degrees north and south of the celestial equator. Points north of the celestial equator have positive declinations, while those to the south have negative declinations.

An object on the celestial equator has a declination of 0. An object at the celestial north pole has a declination of +90. An object at the celestial south pole has a declination of 90.

The sign is customarily included even if it is positive. Any unit of angle can be used for declination, but it is often expressed in degrees, minutes, and seconds of arc. As seen from locations in the Earth's Northern Hemisphere, celestial objects with declinations greater than 90 ( = observer's latitude) are always above the horizon. This similarly occurs in the Southern Hemisphere for objects with declinations less than, i.e. more negative than, -90 . Such stars appear to circle daily around the celestial pole without dipping below the horizon, and are therefore called circumpolar stars. An extreme example is the pole star which has a declination near to +90, so it is circumpolar as seen from anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere except very close to the equator. The Sun's declination varies with the seasons (see below). As seen from arctic or antarctic latitudes, the Sun is circumpolar near the local summer solstice, leading to the phenomenon of it being above the horizon at midnight, which is called midnight sun. When an object is directly overhead its declination is almost always within 0.01 degree of the observer's latitude; it would be exactly equal except for two complications. The first complication applies to all celestial objects: the object's declination equals the observer's astronomic latitude, but the term "latitude" ordinarily means geodetic latitude, which is the latitude on maps and GPS devices. The difference (the vertical deflection) usually doesn't exceed a few thousandths of a degree. For practical purposes the second complication only applies to solar system objects: "declination" is ordinarily measured at the center of the earth, which isn't quite spherical, so a line from the center of the earth to the object is not quite perpendicular to the Earth's surface. It turns out that when the moon is directly overhead its geocentric declination can differ from the observer's astronomic latitude by up to 0.005 degree. The importance of this complication is inversely proportional to the object's distance from the earth, so for most purposes it's not a concern for the sun and planets.

Right ascension (abbrev. RA; symbol ) is the astronomical term for one of the two coordinates of a point on the celestial sphere when using the equatorial coordinate system. The other coordinate is the declination.

edit] Explanation
Right ascension is the celestial equivalent of terrestrial longitude. Both right ascension and longitude measure an angle from a zero point on an equator. For right ascension, the zero point is known as the first point of Aries, which is the place in the sky where the Sun crosses the celestial equator at the March equinox. Right ascension is measured continuously in a full circle towards the east. Any units of angular measure can be used for right ascension, but it is customarily measured in hours, minutes, and seconds, with 24 hours being equivalent to a full circle. The reason for this choice is that the Earth rotates at an approximately constant rate (see sidereal time). Since a complete circle has 360 degrees, an hour of right ascension is equal to 124 of this, or 15 degrees of arc, a single minute of right ascension equal to 15 minutes of arc, and a second of right ascension equal to 15 seconds of arc. Sidereal hour angle, used in celestial navigation, is similar to right ascension, but increases westward rather than eastward. It is important not to confuse sidereal hour angle with the astronomical concept of hour angle, which is how far west an object is from one's local meridian.

Right ascension can be used to determine a star's location and to determine how long it will take for a star to reach a certain point in the sky. For example, if a star with RA = 01:30:00 is at a location's meridian, then a star with RA = 20:00:00 will be in the meridian 18.5 sidereal hours later. For observation purposes, the apparent right ascension is generally used. This gives the position of the body corrected for the delay from the time of light to travel from the body being observed to the Earth. The tilt of the Earth's axis gradually rotates over time. This effect, known as precession, causes the measured right ascension and declination of even a perfectly stationary celestial object to change noticeably over the span of decades. Therefore, equatorial coordinates are inherently relative to the year of their observation. Astronomers always specify equatorial coordinates with reference to a particular epoch. An astronomer comparing coordinates from different epochs must mathematically rotate one of the coordinate systems to match the other, or rotate both to match a common epoch. The currently used standard epoch is J2000.0, which is January 1, 2000 at 12:00 TT. The prefix "J" indicates that it is a Julian epoch. Prior to J2000.0, astronomers used the successive Besselian Epochs B1875.0, B1900.0, and B1950.0. In astronomy, an epoch is a moment in time used as a reference point for some time-varying astronomical quantity, such as celestial coordinates, or elliptical orbital elements of a celestial body, where these are (as usual) subject to perturbations and vary with time.[1] The time-varying astronomical quantities might include, for example, the mean longitude or mean anomaly of a body, or of the node of its orbit relative to a reference-plane, or of the direction of the apogee or aphelion of its orbit, or the size of the major axis of its orbit. The main uses of astronomical quantities specified in this way include their use to calculate other parameters of relevant motions, e.g. in order to predict future positions and velocities. The applied tools of the mathematics disciplines of celestial mechanics or its subfield orbital mechanics (for predicting orbital paths and positions for bodies in motion under the gravitational effects of other bodies) can for example be used to generate an ephemeris, which can be presented as a table of values giving positions and velocities of astronomical objects in the sky at a given time or times.

[edit] History
The concept of right ascension has been known at least as far back as Hipparchus who measured stars in equatorial coordinates in the 2nd century BC. But Hipparchus and his successors made their star catalogs in ecliptic coordinates, and the use of RA was limited to special cases. With the invention of the telescope, it became possible for astronomers to observe celestial objects in greater detail, provided that the telescope could be kept pointed at the object for a period of time. The easiest way to do that is to use an equatorial mount, which allows the telescope to be aligned with one of its two pivots parallel to the Earth's axis. A motorized clock drive often is used with an equatorial mount to cancel out the Earth's rotation. As the equatorial mount became widely adopted for observation, the equatorial coordinate system, which includes right ascension, was adopted at the same time for simplicity. Equatorial mounts could then be accurately pointed at objects with known right ascension and declination by the use of setting

circles. The first star catalog to use right ascension and declination was John Flamsteed's Historia Coelestis Britannica (1712, 1725). Sidereal time /sadril/ is a time-keeping system astronomers use to keep track of the direction to point their telescopes to view a given star in the night sky. Briefly, a sidereal day is a "time scale that is based on the Earth's rate of rotation measured relative to the fixed stars."[1] From a given observation point, a star found at one location in the sky will be found at nearly the same location on another night at the same sidereal time. This is similar to how the time kept by a sundial can be used to find the location of the Sun. Just as the Sun and Moon appear to rise in the east and set in the west, so do the stars. Both solar time and sidereal time make use of the regularity of the Earth's rotation about its polar axis, solar time following the Sun while sidereal time roughly follows the stars. More exactly, sidereal time follows the vernal equinox, which is not quite fixed among the stars; Precession and nutation shift the equinox slightly from one day to the next, so sidereal time is not an exact measure of the rotation of the Earth relative to inertial space.[2] Common time on a typical clock measures a slightly longer cycle, accounting not only for the Earth's axial rotation but also for the Earth's annual revolution around the Sun of slightly less than 1 degree per day.

The celestial equator is a great circle on the imaginary celestial sphere, in the same plane as the Earth's equator. In other words, it is a projection of the terrestrial equator out into space.[1] As a result of the Earth's axial tilt, the celestial equator is inclined by 23.4 with respect to the ecliptic plane. An observer standing on the Earth's equator visualizes the celestial equator as a semicircle passing directly overhead through the zenith. As the observer moves north (or south), the celestial equator tilts towards the southern (or northern) horizon. The celestial equator is defined to be infinitely distant (since it is on the celestial sphere); thus the observer always sees the ends of the semicircle disappear over the horizon exactly due east and due west, regardless of the observer's position on Earth. (At the poles, though, the celestial equator would be parallel to the horizon.) At all latitudes the celestial equator appears perfectly straight because the observer is only finitely far from the plane of the celestial equator but infinitely far from the celestial equator itself.[2] Celestial objects near the celestial equator are visible worldwide, but they culminate the highest in the sky in the tropics. The celestial equator currently passes through these constellations:

Pisces Cetus Taurus Eridanus Orion

Monoceros Canis Minor Hydra Sextans Leo

Virgo Serpens Ophiuchus Aquila Aquarius

This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2009) In astronomy, the culmination of a planet, star, constellation, etc. is the altitude (or elevation angle) reached when the object transits over an observer's meridian[citation needed]. During a sidereal day, an astronomical object will cross the meridian twice: once at its upper culmination, when it is at its highest point as seen from the earth, and once at its lower culmination, its lowest point. Often, culmination is used to mean upper culmination[citation needed]. The altitude of an object in degrees at its upper culmination is equal to (90 L + D), where L is the observer's latitude and D is the object's declination Generally, the sun is visible at its upper culmination (at noon) and not visible at its lower culmination (at midnight). But during winter near the North Pole, the sun is below the horizon at both of its culminations. In most of the northern hemisphere, Polaris, the "North Star", and the rest of the stars of the constellation Ursa Minor can be seen to rotate around the celestial pole and

are all visible at both culminations, as long as the sky is dark enough. Such stars, which never set at the observer's location are described as being circumpolar. These three examples illustrate all three cases, dependent on the latitude of the observer and the declination of the celestial body[citation needed].

the object is above the horizon even at its lower culmination: it is circumpolar; i.e. if | declination + latitude| > 90 (i.e. if in absolute value the declination is more than the colatitude, in the corresponding hemisphere) the object is below the horizon even at its upper culmination; i.e. if |declination latitude| > 90 (i.e. if in absolute value the declination is more than the colatitude, in the opposite hemisphere) the upper culmination is above, and the lower below the horizon, so the body is observed to rise and set daily; in the other cases (i.e. if in absolute value the declination is less than the colatitude)

The third case applies for objects in a part of the full sky equal to the cosine of the latitude (at the equator it applies for all objects, the sky turns around the horizontal north-south line; at the poles it applies for none, the sky turns around the vertical line). The first and second case each apply for half of the remaining sky. The time from one upper culmination to the next is approximately 24 hours, and from an upper to a lower culmination is approximately 12 hours. The movement of the Earth on its orbit and proper motion of the celestial body affect the time between successive upper culminations of the body. Because of the proper and improper motions of the sun, one solar day (the time between two upper culminations of the sun) is longer than one sidereal day (the time between two like culminations of any fixed star)[citation needed]. The mean difference is 1/365.24219 because the Earth needs 365.24219 days for its orbit around the Sun. (see also sidereal day)

[edit] Example: the Sun

Suppose on a given summer day the declination of the sun is +20. The complementary angle of 70 (from the sun to the pole) is added or subtracted from the observer's latitude to find the upper and lower culminations:

At a latitude of 52N, the upper culmination is at 58, in the south, and the lower culmination is 18, below the horizon, in the north. This is calculated as 52+70=122 (the supplementary angle being 58) for the upper, and 52-70=18 for the lower. At a latitude of 80N the upper culmination is at 30, in the south, and the lower at 10, also above the horizon (midnight sun), in the north.

A mean sidereal day is about 23 hours, 56 minutes, 4.091 seconds (23.93447 hours or 0.99726957 mean solar days), the time it takes the Earth to make one rotation relative to the vernal equinox. (Due to nutation, an actual sidereal day is not quite so constant.) The vernal equinox itself precesses slowly westward relative to the fixed stars, completing one revolution in about 26,000 years, so the misnamed sidereal day ("sidereal" is derived from the Latin sidus meaning "star") is some 0.008 seconds shorter than the Earth's period of rotation relative to the fixed stars.

The longer "true" sidereal period is called a stellar day by the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS). It is also referred to as the sidereal period of rotation. Maps of the stars in the night sky use declination and right ascension as coordinates. These correspond to latitude and longitude respectively. While declination is measured in degrees, right ascension is measured in units of time, because it was most natural to name locations in the sky in connection with the time when they crossed the meridian. In the sky, the meridian is the imaginary north to south line that goes through the point directly overhead (the zenith). The right ascension of any object crossing the meridian is equal to the current local (apparent) sidereal time, ignoring for present purposes that part of the circumpolar region north of the north celestial pole (for an observer in the northern hemisphere) or south of the south celestial pole (for an observer in the southern hemisphere) that is crossing the meridian the other way. Because the Earth orbits the Sun once a year, the sidereal time at any one place at midnight will be about four minutes later each night, until, after a year has passed, one additional sidereal day has transpired compared to the number of solar days that have gone by.
This article is about the astronomical event when the sun is at zenith over the Equator. For other uses, see Equinox (disambiguation). For the same event happening on other planets and setting up a celestial coordinate system, see Equinox (celestial coordinates).
UTC date and time of solstices and equinoxes[1] Equino Solstic Equino Solstic x e x e yea Mar June Sept Dec r da tim da tim da tim da tim y e y e y e y e 200 00:0 18:0 09:5 06:0 21 21 23 22 7 7 6 1 8 200 05:4 23:5 15:4 12:0 20 20 22 21 8 8 9 4 4 200 11:4 05:4 21:1 17:4 20 21 22 21 9 4 5 8 7 201 17:3 11:2 03:0 23:3 20 21 23 21 0 2 8 9 8 201 23:2 17:1 09:0 05:3 20 21 23 22 1 1 6 4 0

201 05:1 23:0 14:4 11:1 20 20 22 21 2 4 9 9 1 201 11:0 05:0 20:4 17:1 20 21 22 21 3 2 4 4 1 201 16:5 10:5 02:2 23:0 20 21 23 21 4 7 1 9 3 201 22:4 16:3 08:2 04:4 20 21 23 22 5 5 8 0 8 201 04:3 22:3 14:2 10:4 20 20 22 21 6 0 4 1 4 201 10:2 04:2 20:0 16:2 20 21 22 21 7 8 4 2 8

An equinox occurs twice a year, when the tilt of the Earth's axis is inclined neither away from nor towards the Sun, the center of the Sun being in the same plane as the Earth's equator. The term equinox can also be used in a broader sense, meaning the date when such a passage happens. The name "equinox" is derived from the Latin aequus (equal) and nox (night), because around the equinox, the night and day have approximately equal length. At an equinox, the Sun is at one of two opposite points on the celestial sphere where the celestial equator (i.e. declination 0) and ecliptic intersect. These points of intersection are called equinoctial points: classically, the vernal point and the autumnal point. By extension, the term equinox may denote an equinoctial point. An equinox happens each year at two specific moments in time (rather than two whole days), when there is a location (the subsolar point) on the Earth's equator, where the center of the Sun can be observed to be vertically overhead, occurring around March 20/21 and September 22/23 each year. Although the word equinox is often understood to mean "equal [day and] night", this is not strictly true. For most locations on earth, there are two distinct identifiable days per year when the length of day and night are closest to being equal; those days are referred to as the "equiluxes" to distinguish them from the equinoxes. Equinoxes are points in time, but equiluxes are days. By convention, equiluxes are the days where sunrise and sunset are closest to being exactly 12 hours apart.[2][3]

Illumination of Earth by the Sun at the March equinox.

The Earth in its orbit around the Sun causes the Sun to appear on the celestial sphere moving over the ecliptic (red), which is tilted on the Equator (white).

Diagram of the Earth's seasons as seen from the north. Far right: December solstice.

Diagram of the Earth's seasons as seen from the south. Far left: June solstice.

Animation made from satellite images showing the changing light patterns on the Earth through a year.

[edit] Date
When Julius Caesar established his calendar in 45 BC, he fixed the Spring equinox on March 25. The reasons of the actual shift to March 21 are linked to the goal followed by Pope Gregory XIII to create his modern Gregorian calendar. In fact, the Pope was not moved by the desire to honor the Roman emperor, but to restore the edicts about the date of Easter of the Council of Nicaea of AD 325. Incidentally, the date of Easter itself is fixed by an approximation of lunar cycles used in the Hebraic calendar, but according to the historian Bede the name comes from a pagan celebration by the Germanic tribes of the vernal (spring) equinox. So, the shift in the date of the equinox that occurred between the 4th and the 16th centuries was annulled with the Gregorian calendar, but nothing was done for the first four centuries of the Julian calendar. The days of February 29 of the years AD 100, AD 200, AD 300, and the day created by the irregular application of leap years between the assassination of Caesar and the decree of Augustus rearranging the calendar in AD 8, remained in effect, and moved the equinox four days earlier than in Caesar's time.

[edit] Names

Vernal equinox and autumnal equinox: these classical names are direct derivatives of Latin (ver = spring and autumnus = autumn). March equinox and September equinox: a usage becoming the preferred standard by technical writers choosing to avoid Northern Hemisphere bias (implied by assuming that March is in the springtime and September is autumnaltrue for those in the Northern Hemisphere but exactly opposite in the Southern Hemisphere). Northward equinox and southward equinox: names referring to the apparent motion of the Sun at the times of the equinox. Vernal point and autumnal point are the points on the celestial sphere where the Sun is located on the vernal equinox and autumnal equinox respectively (again, the seasonal attribution is that of the Northern Hemisphere). First point (or cusp) of Aries and first point of Libra are names used by navigators and astrologers. Navigational ephemeris tables record the geographic position of the First Point of Aries as the reference for position of navigational stars. Due to the precession of the equinoxes, the astrological signs of the tropical zodiac where these equinoxes are located no longer correspond with the actual constellations once ascribed to them. The equinoxes are currently in the constellations of Pisces and Virgo. In sidereal astrology (notably Hindu astrology), by contrast, the first point of Aries remains aligned with Ras Hammel "the head of the ram", i.e. the Aries constellation.

[edit] Length of equinoctial day and night

On a day of the equinox, the center of the Sun spends a roughly equal amount of time above and below the horizon at every location on the Earth, night and day being of roughly the same length. The word equinox derives from the Latin words aequus (equal) and nox (night); in reality, the day is longer than the night at an equinox. Commonly, the day is defined as the period when sunlight reaches the ground in the absence of local obstacles. From the Earth, the Sun appears as a disc rather than a single point of light, so when the center of the Sun is below the horizon, its upper edge is visible. Furthermore, the atmosphere refracts light, so even when the upper limb of the Sun is below the horizon, its rays reach over the horizon to the ground. In sunrise/sunset tables, the assumed semidiameter (apparent radius) of the Sun is 16 minutes of arc and the atmospheric refraction is assumed to be 34 minutes of arc. Their combination means that when the upper limb of Sun is on the visible horizon, its center is 50 minutes of arc below the geometric horizon, which is the intersection with the celestial sphere of a horizontal plane through the eye of the observer. These cumulative effects make the day about 14 minutes longer than the night at the Equator and longer still towards the Poles. The real equality of day and night only happens in places far enough from the Equator to have a seasonal difference in day length of at least 7 minutes, actually occurring a few days towards the winter side of each equinox. The date at which sunset and sunrise becomes exactly 12 hours apart is known as the equilux. Because sunset and sunrise times vary with an observer's geographic location (longitude and latitude), the equilux likewise depends on location and does not exist for locations sufficiently close to the Equator. The equinox, however, is a precise moment in time which is common to all observers on Earth.

[edit] Geocentric view of the astronomical seasons

Main article: Geocentric view of the seasons This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2011)

In the half year centered on the June solstice, the Sun rises and sets towards the north, which means longer days with shorter nights for the Northern Hemisphere and shorter days with longer nights for the Southern Hemisphere. In the half year centered on the December solstice, the Sun rises and sets towards the south and the durations of day and night are reversed. Also on the day of an equinox, the Sun rises everywhere on Earth (except the Poles) at 06:00 in the morning and sets at 18:00 in the evening (local time). These times are not exact for several reasons, one being that the Sun is much larger in diameter than the Earth, so that more than half of the Earth could be in sunlight at any one time (due to unparallel rays creating tangent points beyond an equal-day-night line); other reasons are as follows:
Most places on Earth use a time zone which is unequal to the local time, differing by up to an hour or even two hours, if daylight saving time (summer time) is included. In that case, the Sun could rise at 08:00 and set at 20:00, but there would still be 12 hours of daylight. Even those people fortunate enough to have their time zone equal to the local time will not see sunrise and sunset at 06:00 and 18:00 respectively. This is due to the variable speed of the Earth in its orbit, and is described as the equation of time. It has different values for the March and September equinoxes (+8 and 8 minutes respectively). Sunrise and sunset are commonly defined for the upper limb of the solar disk, rather than its center. The upper limb is already up for at least one minute before the center appears, and likewise, the upper limb sets one minute later than the center of the solar disk. Due to atmospheric refraction, the Sun, when near the horizon, appears a little more than its own diameter above the position than where it is in reality. This makes sunrise more than another two minutes earlier and sunset the equal amount later. These two effects add up to almost seven minutes, making the equinox day 12 h 7 min long and the night only 11 h 53 min. In addition to that, the night includes twilight. When dawn and dusk are added to the daytime instead, the day would be almost 13 hours. The above numbers are only true for the tropics. For moderate latitudes, this discrepancy increases (for example, 12 minutes in London) and closer to the Poles it gets very large. Up to about 100 km from either Pole, the Sun is up for a full 24 hours on an equinox day. Height of the horizon on both the sunrise and sunset sides changes the day's length. Going up into the mountains will lengthen the day, while standing in a valley with hilltops on the east and the west can shorten the day significantly.

[edit] Day arcs of the Sun

Some of the statements above can be made clearer when picturing the day arc (i.e. the path the Sun tracks along the celestial dome in its diurnal movement). The pictures show this for every hour on equinox day. In addition, some 'ghost' suns are also indicated below the horizon, up to 18 down. The Sun in this area still causes twilight. The pictures can be used for both Northern and Southern hemispheres. The observer is supposed to sit near the tree on the island in the middle of the ocean; the green arrows give cardinal directions.
On the northern hemisphere, north is to the left, the Sun rises in the east (far arrow), culminates in the south (right arrow) while moving to the right and setting in the west (near arrow). On the southern hemisphere, south is to the left, the Sun rises in the east (near arrow), culminates in the north (right arrow) while moving to the left and setting in the west (far arrow).

The following special cases are depicted:

Day arc at 0 latitude (Equator) The arc passes through the zenith, resulting in almost no shadows at high noon.

Day arc at 20 latitude The Sun culminates at 70 altitude and its path at sunrise and sunset occurs at a steep 70 angle to the horizon. Twilight still lasts about one hour.

Day arc at 50 latitude Twilight lasts almost two hours.

Day arc at 70 latitude The Sun culminates at no more than 20 altitude and its daily path at sunrise and sunset is at a shallow 20 angle to the horizon. Twilight lasts for more than four hours; in fact, there is barely any night.

Day arc at 90 latitude (Pole) If it were not for atmospheric refraction, the Sun would be on the horizon all the time.

[edit] Celestial coordinate systems

The vernal point (vernal equinox) the one the Sun passes in March on its way from south to north is used as the origin of some celestial coordinate systems:

in the ecliptic coordinate system, the vernal point is the origin of the ecliptic longitude; in the equatorial coordinate system, the vernal point is the origin of the right ascension.

Because of the precession of the Earth's axis, the position of the vernal point changes with respect to the celestial sphere over time and as a consequence, both the equatorial and the ecliptic coordinate systems change over time. Therefore, when specifying celestial coordinates for an object, one has to specify at what time the vernal point and the celestial equator are taken. That reference time is called the equinox of date.[4] The autumnal equinox is at ecliptic longitude 180 and at right ascension 12h. The upper culmination of the vernal point is considered the start of the sidereal day for the observer. The hour angle of the vernal point is, by definition, the observer's sidereal time. For western tropical astrology, the same thing holds true; the vernal equinox is the first point (i.e. the start) of the sign of Aries. In this system, it is of no significance that the fixed stars and equinox shift compared to each other due to the precession of the equinoxes. The ecliptic is the apparent path that the Sun follows through the sky over the course of the year, relative to the stars, as seen from the vantage point of the Earth. It is traced on the imaginary celestial sphere, where that is intersected by the plane of the ecliptic, the geometric plane in which the Earth orbits the Sun. The name refers to the fact that eclipses occur when the full or new Moon meets the Sun on this path. Note that it does not refer to the hour-by-hour motion of the Sun as the Earth rotates, but the day-to-day motion of the Sun when observed at the same time each day.

[edit] Equator
As the rotational axis of the Earth is not perpendicular to its orbital plane, the equatorial plane is not parallel to the ecliptic plane, but makes an angle of about 2326', which is known as the axial tilt (or obliquity of the ecliptic). The intersections of the equatorial and ecliptic planes with the celestial dome are great circles known as the celestial equator and the ecliptic respectively. The intersection line of the two planes results in two diametrically opposite intersection points, known as the equinoxes. The equinox that the Sun passes from south to north is known as the vernal equinox or first point of Aries. Ecliptic longitude, usually indicated with the letter , is measured from this point on 0 to 360 towards the east. Ecliptic latitude, usually indicated with the letter is measured +90 to the north or -90 to the south. The same intersection point also defines the origin of the equatorial coordinate system, named right ascension measured from 0 to 24 hours also to the east and usually indicated with or R.A., and declination, usually indicated with also measured +90 to the north or -90 to the south. Simple rotation formulas allow a conversion from , to , and back (see: ecliptic coordinate system).

[edit] Stars

The ecliptic serves as the center of a region called the zodiac, which constitutes a band of 9 on either side. Traditionally, this region is divided into 12 signs of 30 longitude each. By tradition, these signs are named after 12 of the 13 constellations straddling the ecliptic. The zodiac signs are very important to many astrologers. Modern astronomers typically use other coordinate systems today. The position of the vernal equinox is not fixed among the stars but due to the lunisolar precession slowly shifting westwards over the ecliptic with a speed of 1 per 72 years. A much smaller north/southwards shift can also be discerned (the planetary precession, along the instantaneous equator, which results in a rotation of the ecliptic plane). Said otherwise, the stars shift eastwards (increase their longitude) measured with respect to the equinoxes in other words, as measured in ecliptic coordinates and (often) also in equatorial coordinates. Using the current official IAU constellation boundaries and taking into account the variable precession speed and the rotation of the ecliptic the equinoxes shift through the constellations in the years (expressed in astronomical year numbering in which the year 0 = 1 BC, -1 = 2 BC, etc.) as follows:[1]

The March equinox passed from Taurus into Aries in year -1865, passed into Pisces in year -67, will pass into Aquarius in year 2597, will pass into Capricornus in year 4312. It passed along (but not into) a 'corner' of Cetus on 010' distance in year 1489. The June solstice passed from Leo into Cancer in year -1458, passed into Gemini in year -10, passed into Taurus in December 1989, will pass into Aries in year 4609. The September equinox passed from Libra into Virgo in year -729, will pass into Leo in year 2439. The December solstice passed from Capricornus into Sagittarius in year -130, will pass into Ophiuchus in year 2269, and will pass into Scorpius in year 3597.

[edit] Sun
UTC date and time of solstices and equinoxes[2] Equinox Mar Solstice June Equinox Sept Solstice Dec

year

day time day time day time day time 2007 21 00:07 21 18:06 23 09:51 22 06:08 2008 20 05:48 20 23:59 22 15:44 21 12:04 2009 20 11:44 21 05:45 22 21:18 21 17:47 2010 20 17:32 21 11:28 23 03:09 21 23:38 2011 20 23:21 21 17:16 23 09:04 22 05:30 2012 20 05:14 20 23:09 22 14:49 21 11:11 2013 20 11:02 21 05:04 22 20:44 21 17:11

2014 20 16:57 21 10:51 23 02:29 21 23:03 2015 20 22:45 21 16:38 23 08:20 22 04:48 2016 20 04:30 20 22:34 22 14:21 21 10:44 2017 20 10:28 21 04:24 22 20:02 21 16:28

Due to the inclination of the Moon's orbit and the resulting movement of Earth around the barycenter, and due as well to the perturbing influences on the Earth's orbit by the other planets, the true Sun is not always exactly on the ecliptic for a hypothetical observer at Earth's center, but may be some arcseconds north or south of it. It is therefore the centre of the mean Sun that outlines its path. As the Earth takes one year to make one complete revolution around the Sun, the apparent position of the Sun also takes the same length of time to make a complete circuit of the whole ecliptic. With slightly more than 365 days in the year, the Sun moves almost 1 eastwards every day (direction of increasing longitude). This annual motion should not be confused with the daily motion of the Sun (and the stars, and indeed the whole celestial sphere for that matter) towards the west along the equator every 24 hours. In fact, where the stars need about 23h 56m for one such rotation to complete the sidereal day, the Sun, which has shifted 1 eastwards during that time needs 4 minutes extra to complete its circle, making the solar day about 24 hours. The distance between Sun and Earth varies slightly during the year, so the speed with which the Sun moves along the ecliptic also varies. For example, within one year, the Sun is north of the equator for about 186.40 days and south of the equator for about 178.24 days. The mean Sun crosses the equator around 20 March at the time of the vernal equinox, when its declination, right ascension, and ecliptic longitude are all zero. (The mean sun's ecliptic latitude is always zero.) The March equinox marks the onset of spring in the northern hemisphere and autumn in the southern. The actual date and time varies from year to year because of the occurrence of leap years. It also shifts slowly over the centuries due to imperfections in the Gregorian calendar. Ecliptic longitude 90, at right ascension 6 hours and a northern declination equal to the obliquity of the ecliptic (23.44), is reached around 21 June. This is the June solstice - or summer solstice in the northern hemisphere and winter solstice in the southern hemisphere. It is also the first point of Cancer and directly overhead on Earth on the tropic of Cancer so named because the Sun turns around in declination. Ecliptic longitude 180, right ascension 12 hours is reached around 22 September and marks the second equinox or first point of Libra. Due to perturbations to the Earth's orbit, the moment the real Sun passes the equator might be several minutes earlier or later. The southernmost declination of the sun is reached at ecliptic longitude 270, right ascension 18 hours at the first point of the sign of Capricorn around 21 December. These traditional signs (in western tropical astrology) have given their names to the solstices and equinoxes, but in reality (as from the list in the previous chapter) the cardinal points are currently situated in the constellations of Pisces, Taurus, Virgo and Sagittarius respectively, due to the precession of the equinoxes.

[edit] Planets

Orbits of planets of the Solar System, Pluto and Ceres, viewed perpendicular to the ecliptic directly above the Sun. Brighter parts of orbits are nearer to the viewer than the ecliptic and darker parts are farther. Of the eight planets, the orbital plane of Mercury has the greatest difference from Earth's at 7 orbital inclination; other planets' inclinations range up to 3.39. Pluto's, at 17, was previously an exception until it was reclassified a dwarf planet, and other non-planetary bodies in the Solar System have even greater orbital inclinations (e.g. Eris at 44 and Pallas at 34). Interestingly, the Earth has the most inclined orbit of all eight major planets relative to the Sun's equator, with the giant planets close behind. Inclination
Inclination Inclination Inclination to ecliptic to Sun's equator to invariable plane[3]

Name

Terrestrials Mercury

7.01

3.38

6.34

Venus Earth Mars Jupiter Saturn Gas giants Uranus Neptune

3.39 0 1.85 1.31 2.49 0.77 1.77

3.86 7.155 5.65 6.09 5.51 6.48 6.43

2.19 1.57 1.67 0.32 0.93 1.02 0.72

The intersection line of the ecliptical plane and another planet's orbital plane is called the nodal line of that planet, and the nodal line's intersection points on the celestial sphere are the ascending node (where the planet crosses the ecliptic from south to north) and the diametrically opposite descending node. Only when an inferior planet passes through one of its nodes can a transit over the Sun take place. Transits, especially for Venus, are quite rare, because the Earth's orbit is more inclined than those of the inner two planets. Inclination and nodal lines, as almost all other orbital elements, change slowly over the centuries due to perturbations from the other planets.

[edit] Moon
The orbit of the Moon is inclined by about 5 to the ecliptic. Its nodal line is not fixed, but regresses (moves towards the west) over a full circle every 18.6 years. This is the cause of nutation and lunar standstill. The moon crosses the ecliptic about twice per month. If this happens during new moon a solar eclipse occurs, during full moon a lunar eclipse. This was the way the ancients could trace the ecliptic along the sky; they marked the places where eclipses could occur.

[edit] Star coordinates

Up to the 17th century in Europe, star maps and positions in star catalogues were always given in ecliptical coordinates, though in China, astronomers employed an equatorial system in their catalogues. It was not until astronomers started to use telescopes and mechanical clocks to measure star positions that equatorial coordinates came into use, which occurred so exclusively that nowadays ecliptical coordinates are no longer used. Nonetheless, this change is not always

desirable, as a planetary conjunction would be much more illustratively described by ecliptic coordinates rather than equatorial. Sidereal time /sadril/ is a time-keeping system astronomers use to keep track of the direction to point their telescopes to view a given star in the night sky. Briefly, a sidereal day is a "time scale that is based on the Earth's rate of rotation measured relative to the fixed stars."[1] From a given observation point, a star found at one location in the sky will be found at nearly the same location on another night at the same sidereal time. This is similar to how the time kept by a sundial can be used to find the location of the Sun. Just as the Sun and Moon appear to rise in the east and set in the west, so do the stars. Both solar time and sidereal time make use of the regularity of the Earth's rotation about its polar axis, solar time following the Sun while sidereal time roughly follows the stars. More exactly, sidereal time follows the vernal equinox, which is not quite fixed among the stars; Precession and nutation shift the equinox slightly from one day to the next, so sidereal time is not an exact measure of the rotation of the Earth relative to inertial space.[2] Common time on a typical clock measures a slightly longer cycle, accounting not only for the Earth's axial rotation but also for the Earth's annual revolution around the Sun of slightly less than 1 degree per day. A mean sidereal day is about 23 hours, 56 minutes, 4.091 seconds (23.93447 hours or 0.99726957 mean solar days), the time it takes the Earth to make one rotation relative to the vernal equinox. (Due to nutation, an actual sidereal day is not quite so constant.) The vernal equinox itself precesses slowly westward relative to the fixed stars, completing one revolution in about 26,000 years, so the misnamed sidereal day ("sidereal" is derived from the Latin sidus meaning "star") is some 0.008 seconds shorter than the Earth's period of rotation relative to the fixed stars. The longer "true" sidereal period is called a stellar day by the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS). It is also referred to as the sidereal period of rotation. Maps of the stars in the night sky use declination and right ascension as coordinates. These correspond to latitude and longitude respectively. While declination is measured in degrees, right ascension is measured in units of time, because it was most natural to name locations in the sky in connection with the time when they crossed the meridian. In the sky, the meridian is the imaginary north to south line that goes through the point directly overhead (the zenith). The right ascension of any object crossing the meridian is equal to the current local (apparent) sidereal time, ignoring for present purposes that part of the circumpolar region north of the north celestial pole (for an observer in the northern hemisphere) or south of the south celestial pole (for an observer in the southern hemisphere) that is crossing the meridian the other way. Because the Earth orbits the Sun once a year, the sidereal time at any one place at midnight will be about four minutes later each night, until, after a year has passed, one additional sidereal day has transpired compared to the number of solar days that have gone by.

[edit] Sidereal time and solar time

Sidereal time vs solar time. Above left: a distant star (the small red circle) and the Sun are at culmination, on the local meridian. Centre: only the distant star is at culmination (a mean sidereal day). Right: few minutes later the Sun is on the local meridian again. A solar day is complete.

Solar time is measured by the apparent diurnal motion of the sun, and local noon in solar time is the moment when the sun is at its highest point in the sky (exactly due south or north depending on the observer's latitude and the season). The average time for the sun to return to its highest point is 24 hours. The Earth makes a rotation around its axis in a sidereal day; during that time it moves a short distance (about 1) along its orbit around the sun. So after a sidereal day has passed the Earth still needs to rotate a bit more before the sun reaches its highest point. A solar day is, therefore, nearly 4 minutes longer than a sidereal day. The stars are so far away that the Earth's movement along its orbit makes nearly no difference to their apparent direction (see, however, parallax), and so they return to their highest point in a sidereal day.

Another way to see this difference is to notice that, relative to the stars, the Sun appears to move around the Earth once per year. Therefore, there is one fewer solar day per year than there are sidereal days. This makes a sidereal day approximately 365.24366.24 times the length of the 24hour solar day, giving approximately 23 hours, 56 minutes, 4.1 seconds (86,164.1 seconds).

[edit] Precession effects

The Earth's rotation is not a simple rotation around an axis that would always remain parallel to itself. The Earth's rotational axis itself rotates about a second axis, orthogonal to the Earth's orbit, taking about 25,800 years to perform a complete rotation. This phenomenon is called the precession of the equinoxes. Because of this precession, the stars appear to move around the Earth in a manner more complicated than a simple constant rotation. For this reason, to simplify the description of Earth's orientation in astronomy and geodesy, it is conventional to chart the positions of the stars in the sky according to right ascension and declination, which are based on a frame that follows the Earth's precession, and to keep track of Earth's rotation, through sidereal time, relative to this frame as well. In this reference frame, Earth's rotation is close to constant, but the stars appear to rotate slowly with a period of about 25,800 years. It is also in this reference frame that the tropical year, the year related to the Earth's seasons, represents one orbit of the Earth around the sun. The precise definition of a sidereal day is the time taken for one rotation of the Earth in this precessing reference frame.

[edit] Definition
Sidereal time, at any moment (and at a given locality defined by its geographical longitude), more precisely Local Apparent Sidereal Time (LAST), is defined as the hour angle of the vernal equinox at that locality: it has the same value as the right ascension of any celestial body that is crossing the local meridian at that same moment. At the moment when the vernal equinox crosses the local meridian, Local Apparent Sidereal Time is 00:00. Greenwich Apparent Sidereal Time (GAST) is the hour angle of the vernal equinox at the prime meridian at Greenwich, England. Local Sidereal Time at any locality differs from the Greenwich Sidereal Time value of the same moment, by an amount that is proportional to the longitude of the locality. When one moves eastward 15 in longitude, sidereal time is larger by one sidereal hour (note that it wraps around at 24 hours). Unlike the reckoning of local solar time in "time zones," incrementing by (usually) one hour, differences in local sidereal time are reckoned based on actual measured longitude, to the accuracy of the measurement of the longitude, not just in whole hours. Apparent Sidereal Time (Local or at Greenwich) differs from Mean Sidereal Time (for the same locality and moment) by the Equation of the Equinoxes: This is a small difference in Right Ascension R.A. (dRA) (parallel to the equator), not exceeding about +/-1.2 seconds of time, due to nutation, the complex 'nodding' motion of the Earth's polar axis of rotation. It corresponds to the current amount of the nutation in (ecliptic) longitude (d) and to the current obliquity ( ) of the ecliptic, so that .

Greenwich Mean Sidereal Time (GMST) and UT1 differ from each other in rate, with the second of sidereal time a little shorter than that of UT1, so that (as at 2000 January 1 noon) 1.002737909350795 second of mean sidereal time was equal to 1 second of Universal Time (UT1). The ratio varies slightly with time, reaching 1.002737909409795 after a century.[3]

To an accuracy within 0.1 second per century, Greenwich (Mean) Sidereal Time (in hours and decimal parts of an hour) can be calculated as
GMST = 18.697374558 + 24.06570982441908 * D ,

where D is the interval, in UT1 days including any fraction of a day, since 2000 January 1, at 12h UT (interval counted positive if forwards to a later time than the 2000 reference instant), and the result is freed from any integer multiples of 24 hours to reduce it to a value in the range 0-24.[4] In other words, Greenwich Mean Sidereal Time exceeds mean solar time at Greenwich by a difference equal to the longitude of the fictitious mean Sun used for defining mean solar time (with longitude converted to time as usual at the rate of 1 hour for 15 degrees), plus or minus an offset of 12 hours (because mean solar time is reckoned from 0h midnight, instead of the pre1925 astronomical tradition where 0h meant noon). Sidereal time is used at astronomical observatories because sidereal time makes it very easy to work out which astronomical objects will be observable at a given time. Objects are located in the night sky using right ascension and declination relative to the celestial equator (analogous to longitude and latitude on Earth), and when sidereal time is equal to an object's right ascension the object will be at its highest point in the sky, or culmination, at which time it is usually best placed for observation, as atmospheric extinction is minimised. Sidereal time is a measure of the position of the Earth in its rotation around its axis, or time measured by the apparent diurnal motion of the vernal equinox, which is very close to, but not identical to, the motion of stars. They differ by the precession of the vernal equinox in right ascension relative to the stars. Earth's sidereal day also differs from its rotation period relative to the background stars by the amount of precession in right ascension during one day (8.4 ms).[5] Its J2000 mean value is 23h56m4.090530833s.[6]

[edit] Exact duration and its variation

A mean sidereal day is about 23 h 56 m 4.1 s in length. However, due to variations in the rotation rate of the Earth, the rate of an ideal sidereal clock deviates from any simple multiple of a civil clock. In practice, the difference is kept track of by the difference UTCUT1, which is measured by radio telescopes and kept on file and available to the public at the IERS and at the United States Naval Observatory. Given a tropical year of 365.242190402 days from Simon et al.[7] this gives a sidereal day of 86,400 , or 86,164.09053 seconds.

Aoki et al.,[8] defined UT1 such that the observed sidereal day at the beginning of 2000 would be 1.002737909350795 times a UT1 day of 86,400 seconds, which gives 86,164.090530833 seconds of UT1. For times within a century of 1984, the ratio only alters in its 11th decimal place. This web-based sidereal time calculator uses a truncated ratio of 1.00273790935. Because this is the period of rotation in a precessing reference frame, it is not directly related to the mean rotation rate of the Earth in an inertial frame, which is given by =2/T where T is the slightly longer stellar day given by Aoki et al. as 86,164.09890369732 seconds.[6] This can be calculated by noting that is the magnitude of the vector sum of the rotations leading to the sidereal day and the precession of that rotation vector. In fact, the period of the Earth's rotation varies on hourly to interannual timescales by around a millisecond,[9] together with a secular

increase in length of day of about 2.3 milliseconds per century, mostly from tidal friction slowing the Earth's rotation.[10]

[edit] Sidereal days compared to solar days on other planets

Of the eight solar planets,[11] all but Venus and Uranus have prograde rotationthat is, they rotate more than once per year in the same direction as they orbit the sun, so the sun rises in the east. Venus and Uranus, however, have retrograde rotation. For prograde rotation, the formula relating the lengths of the sidereal and solar days is
number of sidereal days per orbital period = 1 + number of solar days per orbital period

or equivalently

On the other hand, the formula in the case of retrograde rotation is

number of sidereal days per orbital period = 1 + number of solar days per orbital period

or equivalently

All the solar planets more distant from the sun than Earth are similar to Earth in that, since they experience many rotations per revolution around the sun, there is only a small difference between the length of the sidereal day and that of the solar daythe ratio of the former to the latter never being less than Earth's ratio of .997 . But the situation is quite different for Mercury and Venus. Mercury's sidereal day is about two-thirds of its orbital period, so by the prograde formula its solar day lasts for two revolutions around the sunthree times as long as its sidereal day. Venus rotates retrograde with a sidereal day lasting about 243.0 earth-days, or about 1.08 times its orbital period of 224.7 earth-days; hence by the retrograde formula its solar day is about 116.8 earth-days, and it has about 1.9 solar days per orbital period. By convention, rotation periods of planets are given in sidereal terms unless otherwise specified.