For a while I lived on Long Island, which is essentially a suburb of New York. (It was awful, but that is not my point). Between everything, including a shopping mall, the night sky was so bright with glare that the only celestial objects were the brightest three planets, the Moon, Arcturus (in Bootes), Spica (in Virgo), Vega (in Lyra), Antares (in Scorpio, and the seven brightest stars of Orion. NOTHING else was visible.
That was my starting point for learning the sky. A little sparce! ;)
Later, I would make trips to better skies and then compare what I had seen with a star map that I had. The Fates are kind.
I'm seeing this (well, I'm a fraction of a degree to the west and south.)
http://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/Yourhorizon?lat=51.5000&ns=North&lon=0.000&ew=West&f ov=45.000&azimuth=270.000&z=2&elements=
It's a fascinating beast of a problem trying to capture a model which makes the realities (the various cycles) link together so that when I stare at that crescent moon...I know that it is being lit by the sun, but...I'm still stuck at the concept of the ecliptic: It is the path of the Sun against the background stars, yes. But when we look at the Sun, we don't see the stars behind it. We see the stars when we swing round and away from the Sun...where the Sun isn't. So I find the concept of the movement of the Sun against the (inivisible) stars behind it...hard to visualise...
Re: 59. So the 50 silver bells are the daily phases of the moon over two lunar cycles? (And a lunar cycle means: the moon is back in the same place in the sky? So, in 59 days, if I look out of the same window at the same time I'll see the moon in the same place and with the same size crescent of light?
Like I said, though, I need to get a...mental handle...on what I'm looking at. Really, I want to find a way to sense my movement relative to the sky. I want to get that sense of being on the panoramic deck of a huge ship, moving...(but in which direction relative to the celestial objects?)...and then, when I can sense that I am moving, really get that sense, then I think I'll be able to get how the celestial objects are also moving, relative to me and relative to each other.
But I'm still stuck in that mind set of: "Here I am, sitting here, not moving, and there are those obbjects...moving and changing...there's no dynamic, no motion...
I remember hitting that motion point once, looking down into the sky, the objects far below me...you know the sensation, when you involuntarily grab some grass to stop from slipping or falling into space.
As I also said, I can't find any references for the dragon. But I need to re-read what you wrote, coz I think you stated it in a side comment which I didn't read properly.
Anyway, Venus and the moon are at my window. I'll see if and how far they move between now and...later this evening, relative to my viewing space (they are framed...'twill be easy to see if they move more than a few of my centimetres. The moon is four fingers below the top window frame; Venus is four fingers below the moon...
...Gaianne, I have to thank yez! Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.
Yes.
That's what it's for.
Really, I want to find a way to sense my movement relative to the sky.
One spring I walked every night up a local hill just after sunset. I was lucky to have a stretch of clear weather. Each night the stars sank lower into the Sun. (This was NOT on Long Island). After a month the sky had sunk one entire zodiac sign. The constellation of Gemini has a couple of bright stars (also, Procyon in Canis Minor is nearby) and their movement from roughly overhead down toward the Sun was very obvious. After a while I could begin to feel it.
Dope helps ;) The Fates are kind.
But the thing is, I realised as the moon went down...see, I'd be wondering how we could ever see Venus, as it's closer to the Sun than us, to look at it we have to look towards the sun. But then I realised that we must be looking acrossVenus, that it is moving away because I am spinning away from it. And I realised I was looking in the rear-view mirror, that the moon and Venus were moving away into the distance. I want to see the stars I'm moving towards, I'll have to check it out. My "east" looks out over the town, so there'll be a lorra light down below bleeding out a lot of stars above. I'll have to go see.
And the puzzle. I need more clues or pointing back towards the right track. Venus and the moon. I saw them this evening, a very elegant relationship, relative to my window. I thought of Islam and the crescent moon with its single star.
So, the moon. It's cycles. Then there are lunar eclipses, used to reset time systems. And there is Venus...and there was Mars in B. So Mars, too. Something about their conjunction and how it relates to lunar eclipses? ?????? I still can't get my head around the ecliptic. Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.
