New answers tagged celestial-mechanics
3
votes
Do the inner-Earth planets actually align with the constellations we see?
Similarly, this would apply to any planet that is closer to the sun than the Earth is: when we see that Mercury is lining up with the constellation Gemini, wouldn't it be lining up with a different ...
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22
votes
Do the inner-Earth planets actually align with the constellations we see?
Yes. There is nothing magical here. If two people look at the same object from two different viewpoints, then the background they see behind the object will be different. When I'm sitting at my ...
- 104k
9
votes
Do the inner-Earth planets actually align with the constellations we see?
You’re partly right. The imaginary line from the Sun to a planet, when extended, almost always points towards a different than as seen from the Earth. For example, in the image below (not to scale!), ...
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2
votes
Open source code for the maths behind a heliostat?
I just discovered that a lot less math is needed to build an heliostat:
in '800 somebody "discovered" that you don't need any un-existing sun-sensor or un-existing computer to continuously ...
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