That was the most baffling idea i have tried to understand ever!

I spent about two weeks trying to explain this to my girlfriend and it entailed a whole lot of me walking in circles around the coffee table. It finally clicked for her in the same way...very much a "OOOhhhh now I see it!" way.

Now she explains it to other people lol.

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I was just sitting here contemplating the immortal words of Socrates who said, "I drank what?"

"Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot." --Carl Sagan "Pale Blue Dot"

I can imagine Kelfazin!
I had someone on the phone today trying to get me to stand in the car park at work and try orbitting a lamp post I reckon i would have been fired if my boss saw me.

Steff, he Moon revolves around the Earth every 27.32 days. It also rotates on its axis during the same 27.32 days. This is no mere coincidence. It is due to tidal locking induced by asymmetrical mass distribution within the Moon. The natural satellites of other planets rotate in a similar manner.

If you were to stand on a merry-go-round always facing its center, both you and the device would turn at the same rate, yet the operator near the central pole would only see your front side.

BTW, the 27.32 days I mentioned is not to be confused with the Moon’s 29.53-day synodic cycle of phases. The latter is based on the Moon’s relation to the Earth and Sun. The Sun appears to shift through the zodiac as the Earth orbits it, so the Moon needs a couple of extra days to catch up to it.

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Curt Renz - "Centaur"
For monthly astronomical calendar visit:
www.CurtRenz.com/astronomical

\Henry Higgins mode\

I think she's got it!

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
All moderation in purple

Are you sure it wasn't an excuse to get you to do some pole dancing..

hmmmm... i wonder..

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ooops..... wrong forum!!!

I never thought of that Cosmocrazy Perhaps they were. Tut Tut.

So, while on the topic, do we know what the far side of the moon looks like?
Also, if the moon was not tidally locked and it took longer to orbit would we see all sides? (or have i undone all the educating i've had by asking this question)

We do, you could do a google image search for those. We've had a number of satellites (as well as the men of the Apollo missions) in orbit around the moon taking tons of pictures.

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I was just sitting here contemplating the immortal words of Socrates who said, "I drank what?"

"Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot." --Carl Sagan "Pale Blue Dot"

This discussion demonstrates the fact that a picture, especially a moving one, can be worth more than a thousand words. It is not uncommon for highly intelligent, educated people to have difficulty in forming a proper mental picture of compound motion from words alone.

A friend of mine had trouble grasping the analogous case of the Big Dipper keeping its pointers aimed at Polaris as it moved around in a circle in the sky. When I got out my circumpolar star chart and demonstrated the motions by rotating the chart, it became perfectly clear to him.

That brings an interesting question: when you guys visualize the moving sky, do you visualize yourself as motionless as the sky rotates overhead, or do you visualize the sky motionless as we revolve on our axis?

For me it's the latter, it helps me maintain a much better 3D map of the sky in my head.

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I was just sitting here contemplating the immortal words of Socrates who said, "I drank what?"

"Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot." --Carl Sagan "Pale Blue Dot"

i nominate this for post of the day.

funny how this thread had two conversations going--one was explaining the distinction of revolution/rotation to a newcomer, and the other was invoking spherical harmonics to explain why the moon is tidally locked with THIS face as opposed to THAT face.

i love this place.

I am the opposite to you Kelfazin, i couldn't imagine seeing things the way you do! Funny how people are different. Even with people giving me excellent easy descriptions i could kind of see what you were getting at but it wasn't until i saw Argos' link with the revolving porsche until i truely understood.
The Porshe was a poor choice though, should have used an Ferrari 599

I'm a dedicated trainer at work and when we have new staff that need to be trained i always suss out what kind of learners they are, if they prefer demonstrations or getting stuck in with my guidance, some people get it from just a simple description. It is interesting.
I will do a search on the moons far side images.

Steffanie, thank you. Seeing that spark of understanding on people´s face is one of the most rewarding things in life.

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What brings us together is stronger than what pulls us apart

I think it was on the summer solstice in 2005 that I attended a public
program of the Minnesota Astronomical Society in the afternoon before
the star party. The people who were going to give a talk were setting
up the projector, which of course had a technical problem requiring a
connector from offsite, creating a delay. When people outside the
observatory door saw the light on the projection screen they started
coming in and sitting down. Nobody else seemed to notice them, so I
decided to just start talking about astronomy. The easiest thing to do
was take questions. One of the questions was exactly the question of
this thread, about the Moon's rotation. I started to try to demonstrate
with my hands, and the guy from the Minnesota Planetarium Society,
Parke Kunkle, came to my rescue and orbited around me as the Moon
while I rotated as the Earth.

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

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http://www.FreeMars.org/jeff/

"I find astronomy very interesting, but I wouldn't if I thought we
were just going to sit here and look." -- "Van Rijn"

"The other planets? Well, they just happen to be there, but the
point of rockets is to explore them!" -- Kai Yeves

Usually, in the Questions and Answers forum, we try not to let the topics stray too far from the Original Poster's question, but in this case steffanie asked two questions and the answers diverged somewhat in technical level. The discussion might engender another question, posted to another thread.Welcome to BAUT!

I think for me it's because, for all intents and purposes, the stars we see are static, they don't move relative to each other in a way that we can perceive in our individual life spans. So since I know those are static, I must be the one moving relative to them. I guess you can think of it like driving in a car. When I'm driving, the car isn't moving relative to me, but it is moving relative to the buildings. So just as we don't think of the buildings flying past while we sit still, I don't think of the stars flying by while the Earth sits still.

Using that model, when I visualize the sky in my head, I "zoom out" and view the Earth as a whole, with the stars surrounding it. That way, when I'm trying to figure out why Orion hasn't risen yet, I look at my internal map, realize it's on the other side of the Earth from me, and look for something else to point the telescope at

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I was just sitting here contemplating the immortal words of Socrates who said, "I drank what?"

"Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot." --Carl Sagan "Pale Blue Dot"

Yes we would, and no you haven't. ;-)

I tend to do the opposite, just because it is hard to imagine it any other way. Even when I'm in a train, I tend to feel that the scenery is moving. Actually, although you say the opposite, the use of the term "moving sky" at the beginning makes it seem like the sky is the one that's moving.

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As above, so below

I think I tend to look at it both ways. I understand how the Earth, Sky and Moon, all work in relation to each other, so when I see a star "rise", I know it's because we rotated far enough over to see it, but I'll also think of it as having come "up".

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I'm not evil.
An evil person would do the things I think up.