July 22, 2005
Being a earthling I have noticed the sun rises in the East and set's in the West. I have also noticed over the years that the earth shifts 23.4 degree's on its axis according to the season's. In the winter, from my vantage point, Vero Beach, Florida. I usually see the sun come up from my East kitchen window. Around the month of April the sun, which appears just North of East, approximately 78.3 degrees and starts it trek towards the South side of East, approximately 101.7 degrees. To date the sun still has not traveled. Of course I know it is the earth swinging to the other side of its rotational axis. So it looks like the sun moving. Are you still with me? It struck me, this is extraordinary. On July 4th while watching a fire works display, I noticed that the Bid Dipper was no longer pointing to Polaris and was considerably off. When I returned home that evening the Big Dippers very position in the night sky with relationship to my back yard viewing was also in a different location. I have also noticed that the moon and the planets seem further to the South in relation to my back yard viewing. I have pondered this phenomena. I recall that last December, 2004 the 9.? magnitude earthquake in Asia which also caused the Tsunami, I believe I heard scientist said that the earthquake was so strong it stoped the rotation of the earth for X amount of time. Am I alone in these obsevatios? These are interesting times.

Regards

Strider 356

Yes. But welcome to the board, Strider 356, we'll try to help.\

Although the earth's tilt is 23 1/2 degrees, the place where the sun rises changes much more than that--for one thing, it goes from plus 23 (the tropic of cancer) to minus 23 (the tropic of capricorn). However, since the path of the sun (the ecliptic) is tilted, it can change even more than that 47 degrees. I just checked with a software SkyMap program, and it says that for Orlando, not far from Vero Beach, the sun rose only 63 degrees from the north on the first day of summer, and it will rise 117 degrees from the north the first part of winter--a difference of 54 degrees. The farther you are from the equator, the greater the difference.

The moon's evening path is more or less opposite the sun's--so when the sun is high in the summer sky, the moon will be low in the night sky, and vice versa.

I'm not sure why you saw the pointer stars of the Big Dipper as off, but it looks OK to me. The position of the Big Dipper changes by four minutes each night, or about one degree, so if you saw it high above Polaris at a certain time of night, it will be far below Polaris at the same time of night, six months (180 days, or degrees) later.

The tsunami did not stop the rotation of the earth, but it did affect the rotation a little--so little that it was just barely measureable.

HTH

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First of all I feel you aren't paying close enough attention to what time of night and what time of year it is while you are observing the Big Dipper and the rest of the constelations. I live in Las Vegas and right now it is a little after 9:00 PM on July 22, 2005. From my location, the Big dipper"s bucket is on bottom with it's "open end" facing east. It's handle is pointing up. However, six hours from now (1/4 of the Earth's rotation period) it will have moved to "above" the north star. It's bucket facing "down" and its handle going off towards the east. Six hours after that (9:00am the next morning) its handle will be pointing down, its bucket will be on top and its open end will be facing west. (Although by that time the sun will have already risen.)
Six months from now, (January 22/23) at 9:00 PM. the Big dipper's handle will be pointing south and the open end of the bucket will be facing west (just like it was at 9:00am on July 23!) because the earth will have moved to the other side of the sun from where it is now. Six hours after that the Big Dipper's bucket will be facing up and its handle will be going off toward the west. And so on. But do you see my point? The constelations change their positions relative to a given point on the earth (such as your back yard) as the Earth rotates and as it makes way around the sun.
By the way, the last two stars that make the outer edge of the bucket always point to the north star no matter what time of night or what time of year it is.

Welcome to BABB! First let me clear up a few misconceptions. First the Earth's axis does not "shift" 23.5 degrees on its axis during the course of the year. It points to pretty much the same spot with a slight drift of a few seconds of arc due to precession of the equinoxes and slight wobbling motions of a few seconds of arc due to solar and lunar nutation. As the Earth orbits the Sun, the Sun shines on Earth from different angles. At the June Solstice, about June 21/22 the Sun shines on the Arctic regions and leaves the Antartic in the dark, which is Summer in the Northern Hemisphere and Winter in the Southern Hemisphere. At the December Solstice, December 21/22, the situation is reversed.

To an observer on Earth, the Sun seems to travel across the sky on an arc that makes an angle with the horizon equal to the co-latitude of the observer. For example, at 30 degrees north latitude, the Sun comes up at a 60 degree angle to the horizon. The location of this circle and thus of the rising and setting points changes during the year according to the following schedule:

At the time of the March Equinox (March 20/21) the Sun rises due east for all observers. In the next month the Sun travels northwards about halfway to its maximum declination of 23.5 degrees. From April 21/22 to May 21/22 it will travel to within 2 degrees of its maximum declination which it will reach at the June Solstice on June 21/22. This means that for the two month period from about May 21 to July 21 the Sun rises near its most northerly point. For the next month the change in the Sun's will be more noticeable, and on August 21/22 the Sun will be halfway to the equator. The Sun reaches the equator at the September Equinox (September 21/22) once again rising due east. For the next month the Sun will travel halfway to its most southerly declination which it reaches at the December Solstice (December 21/22). The two months surrounding that (November 21 - January 21) are spent near this southernmost point, and again the motion becomes more noticeable after that, and by February 21/22 the Sun is halfway between its southernmost point and the equator.

Keep watching the Sun, perhaps even mark the northernmost and southernmost rises on the appropriate dates as your own personal Stonehenge.
Are you sure you were pointing with the right stars? The pointers are the two stars at the forward edge of the bowl, farthest from the handle. The handle itself can be used to point in the general direction of Arcturus.
You may want to observe some more. After observing it for several seasons you will have a better idea of what to expect. Also, have you moved there from a more northerly latitude? Note that Polaris will be at a lower altitude in Florida and that the Big Dipper will actually set.
The orbit of the Moon has an inclination of about 5.1 degrees to the ecliptic which is inclined 23.5 degrees to the equator. The plane of the orbit precesses every 18.6 years and we just happen to be at that time when the Moon's orbit has its maximum inclination to the equator of 28.6 degrees. At this time of the year, we are seeing full moons at their most southerly declinations. In 9.3 years the inclination of the Moon's orbit to the equator will be at its minimum of 18.4 degrees and the excursions of the Moon in declination will not be as extreme as they are now.
No, the earthquake did not stop the rotation of the Earth. It did speed it up a little, making the day shorter by several microseconds.

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No, the Dipper will be below Polaris and some or all of its stars will have set at lower latitudes.

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If I correctly understand what the OP is saying about the "pointers" of the Big Dipper, I think he is simply noticing something that has always been there. The pointers have never pointed exactly to Polaris. They get you in the general location, but they have never exactly lined up. Believe me, if something significant had happened to the Earth's axis recently, we'd all have noticed!

Take a look at the movies linked below. These are movies of the night sky taken with the Concam camera at Rosemary Hill Observatory in Gainesville, FL ... not too far from you. The Concams are part of the Night Sky Live project http://nightskylive.net/
You will see in each case that Polaris remains nicely fixed as the night goes on, certain evidence that the Earth's pole pointed to that spot on the sky both before and after the Dec '04 earthquake. If you look closely you will see that the pointers of the dipper point twoards but not exactly at Polaris (and that's pretty much how it has been since man has recorded observations of the night sky).

Movies with the RH Concam
http://nightskylive.net/rh/rh050312/movie-rh050312.gif Mar 12 '05
http://astrho.astro.ufl.edu/rh020212.gif Feb 12 '02

Here is an additional movie taken at Wise Observatory, Israel showing the sky just after July 4 '5
http://nightskylive.net/wo/wo050705/movie-wo050705.gif

There are now eight Concams in the northern hemisphere (Mauna Kea, Haleakela, Mt. Wilson, Kitt Peak, Rosemary Hill, the Canary Islands, Wise Observatory, Hanle India) and three in the southern hemisphere (Cerro Pachon, Sutherland S.A., Siding Spring). You can access any of these at any time from http://nightskylive.net/ . Click on any of the current images, then on "archive" to delve into the archived images. A GIF movie is usually produced for each nights observing and that is where I have picked up the above links.

IMO aka John Oliver, custodian of the RH Concam.

Maybe the star that you thought was polaris was in fact a different star.

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Maybe you can come up with a Polaris question for the quiz ... its your turn.

I'm not sure what you're trying to suggest but as ATP said...

Indeed, and as I live very far from the equator, I should know the difference.

And again, indeed the sun never rises during parts of december and never sets during some parts of june and july. That is the sun is up all the time in mid summer, we had that long three-week day just recently... and down all the time in midwinter... and its very depressing, you know?! If this wasn't happening, I would know, trust me

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