Newgrange/Stonehenge

Orion36

The idea of axial precession and its cause originates in the work of Copernicus however there is a necessary modification needed to transfer its cause from a long term axial trait to a long term orbital feature. The two great neolithic monuments and their respective alignments are a testament to that necessary modification as both,separated by a thousand years,still retain their fix to the June/December Solstice even though that 1000 years represents roughly 5% of a precessional cycle or roughly 18 degree difference if axial precession was valid.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Earth_axial_precession.svg


If axial precession as it is presently understood was valid both monuments would have lost their alignments as Newgrange is roughly 20% through a precessional cycle.

The real value of this information comes in terms of explaining the seasons and defining planetary climate for although it looks like axial precession,the planet Uranus and its unique characteristics demonstrate that the Earth ,like Uranus,has two surface rotations to the central Sun -

http://londonastronomer.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/uranus_2001-2007.jpg

It is an amazing thing to be in possession of a national treasure like Newgrange or Stonehenge yet the caretakers of these monuments are presently unable to explain the dynamics behind the alignment.

rccaulfield

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeoastronomy_and_Stonehenge

do you believe theres a hidden binary star with our sun and your going to throw several long winded jargon full copy and paste pieces on this thread until you finally come out with that like you've done in other forums? The allignments are perfectly off by predicted dates on both monuments.

Orion36

rccaulfield wrote: »

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeoastronomy_and_Stonehenge

do you believe theres a hidden binary star with our sun and your going to throw several long winded jargon full copy and paste pieces on this thread until you finally come out with that like you've done in other forums? The allignments are perfectly off by predicted dates on both monuments.

The statement stands on its own,if axial precession as it is presently understood were valid then not only would both Newgrange and Stonehenge have already lost their alignments at the Dec/June solstices ,the 1000 year difference between the two monuments would mean that Newgrange would have lost its solstice alignment while Stonehenge was being built -

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/Earth_precession.svg

The old monuments tell people something new astronomically but also tell you about yourself,I prefer to deal with the former and leave your stone cold intellect for what it is. There is room for a spirited discussion here and a wonderful challenge as clearly the great monuments do not lose their fix on the orbital solstice event and that depends on a stable axial inclination so although precession is a feature,it is actually a long term orbital trait and not an long term axial trait.

Wibbs

rccaulfield wrote: »

The allignments are perfectly off by predicted dates on both monuments.

Indeed they are. In Newgrange the light doesn't fully illuminate the chamber as it would have done when it was built. If anything the site is a proof of the latterly discovered procession.

Orion36

The other responses are too feeble to be of any use,on the bottom left graphic where they have assigned an inclination for 3000 BC based on present understanding of axial precession ,it doesn't mesh with the actual location of the polar coordinates at the December Solstice 5200 years ago or today otherwise the alignments wouldn't constantly occur across the Millenia -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Earth_axial_precession.svg


Using Newgrange as a starting point for a precessional cycle of roughly 25900 years and treating the monument as a working astronomical tool,it is possible to demolish the rubbish contemporaries have about axial precession -

"Over the course of a 26,000 year cycle, the Earth’s axis traces out a great circle in the sky. This is known as the precession of the equinoxes.
At the halfway point, 13,000 years, the seasons are reversed for the two hemispheres, and then they return to original starting point 13,000 years later."

http://www.universetoday.com/75843/why-are-there-seasons/


As we are 20% through a precessional cycle from the perspective of the building of Newgrange and its alignment ,does anyone seriously believe that the seasons are reversing across the 5200 years it has been in existence notwithstanding the later Stonehenge monument and its Solstice alignment which doesn't budge from the June Solstice across the Millenia ?.

The real value of Newgrange and Stonehenge is in how they help alter the explanation for the seasons and modify precession to a long term orbital feature from an axial one,academics might not care nor the people who are in charge of Newgrange but they really should given the present day climate fuss and the lack of understanding between dynamics and terrestrial effects.

cfuserkildare

Odd,

I brought up the subject of precession a few weeks ago and was shot down for it!

Orion36

cfuserkildare wrote: »

Odd,

I brought up the subject of precession a few weeks ago and was shot down for it!

One of the main points is to show what Newgrange and Stonehenge can do as working astronomical tools rather than get caught in a dreary exercise of preconceived notions that are false.

Clearly there is no reversal of the seasons across a 13000 year period as per axial precession and the ancient alignments demonstrate this conclusively so this is then a point of departure for looking at the motions of the Earth once more with all the advantages of modern tools such as imaging and graphics.

If you could view the annual motion of the Earth from the central Sun you would see the full face of the Earth in Sunlight and never see the orbital shadow but you would see the poles located 23 1/2 degrees South or North of that full face come into view or disappear from view depending on where the Earth is in its orbit. The annual motion as seen from the Sun would look roughly like this -

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/Earth_precession.svg

You can actually see it happen with the distant Uranus -

http://londonastronomer.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/uranus_2001-2007.jpg


Yes Newgrange and Stonehenge are working astronomical tools even if these guys are not comfortable with that as it shows up their own understanding of astronomy for what it is. Wouldn't it be nice to visit the ancient sites someday and hear how they contribute to understanding the motions of the Earth rather than the insipid 'make up your own theory' policy of the monument caretakers presently.

Ipso

So what kind of tools are they meant to be? What part of the current theory do you take issue with?

Zubeneschamali

Ipso wrote: »

What part of the current theory do you take issue with?

It's not really the theory that the OP has issues with, it is basic facts like how long the Earth takes to rotate once on it's axis (23 hours, 56 minutes, 4.0916 seconds give or take).

Orion36

Ipso wrote: »

So what kind of tools are they meant to be? What part of the current theory do you take issue with?

If you are going to announce to the world the theory that the hemispheres reverse seasons every 12900 years as part of a 25920 year axial precesssional cycle while the Newgrange and Stonehenge monuments still retain their fix to their respective December and June Solstices across a 5200 year span then yes,these ancient monuments are not just spectacular buildings by themselves,they are amazing astronomical tools.

What I see is a lack of confident Irish people just as the original discovery was assigned to everyone but the Irish or the Solstice alignment was a chance thing instead of deliberate -

"Although this remarkable occurrence is now almost universally regarded as having been carefully planned by the builders of Newgrange, archaeologists were among the last to accept this as fact, and indeed there may be a few who still do not. Thus as recently as 1964, Ó Riordáin and Daniel could scoff at a popular account incorporating a reference to the sunlight phenomenon at Newgrange, describing it in total as 'an example of the jumble of nonsense and wishful thinking indulged in by those who prefer the pleasures of the irrational and the joys of unreason to the hard thinking that archaeology demands'. "

http://homepage.eircom.net/~seanjmurphy/irhismys/newgrknow.htm


Both Newgrange and Stonehenge and their constant alignment across the Millenia are a means to explain the seasons in a new way and why axial precession as it is presently understood doesn't happen. So this is a story of two halves,the first half rewrites ancient history and how accomplished our ancestors actually were in creating these astronomical markers,the second half begins here and now as these markers are a rock solid foundation on which to build appreciation of the Earth's motions.

There is nothing dull and dreary about any of this,if the 'theorists' want to keep their notion that the seasons are reversed every 13000 years through axial precession then Newgrange and Stonehenge puts a stop to that nonsense as Newgrange is roughly 20% through a precessional cycle and they would have since fallen out of alignment were present conceptions of axial precession valid. Precession is a very complicated issue and nothing like the flawed simplistic view it is today.

Saying it again is not going to make any difference to the dull guys but I assume there are people who have an inkling and curiosity that these sites do not lose their alignments across many,many centuries. So readers here get the choice of affirming that the Newgrange and Stonhenge alignments are intentional, designed to reflect the December and June Solstices and remained fixed across 5000 years or the false theory that the Earth reverses its seasons over a 1300 year period via axial precession,you may have one or the other but not both.

Cianmcliam

Sorry if I am a little confused, but are you not basing all this on the assumption that 'days', 'months' etc. are actual, real entities and not just numerical approximations that fall out of sync with an analog system? Once you grasp that then the arguments you are making make no sense. The winter solstice in the northern hemisphere will always happen while the northern hemisphere is tilted away from the sun (hence it will be winter), our calendar slips out of sync because of precession and the margin of error between our calendar year and the actual orbit but the astronomical event will occur in roughly the same manner. We will never have a winter solstice 'slip' through the seasons, simply because we shift our calendar to keep it in sync with the seasons, not the other way around.

Orion36

Cianmcliam wrote: »

Sorry if I am a little confused, but are you not basing all this on the assumption that 'days', 'months' etc. are actual, real entities and not just numerical approximations that fall out of sync with an analog system? Once you grasp that then the arguments you are making make no sense. The winter solstice in the northern hemisphere will always happen while the northern hemisphere is tilted away from the sun (hence it will be winter), our calendar slips out of sync because of precession but the astronomical event will occur in roughly the same manner. We will never have a winter solstice 'slip' through the seasons, simply because we shift our calendar to keep it in sync with the seasons, not the other way around.

The theory is that the Earth's hemispheres reverse their seasons every 13000 years so whatever confusion you have take it up with the theorists who promote the fallacy based on axial precession -

"Over the course of a 26,000 year cycle, the Earth’s axis traces out a great circle in the sky. This is known as the precession of the equinoxes.
At the halfway point, 13,000 years, the seasons are reversed for the two hemispheres, and then they return to original starting point 13,000 years later."

http://www.universetoday.com/75843/why-are-there-seasons/

The topic is only for people who realize that Newgrange and Stonehenge have stable alignments for thousands of years due to the fact that the rotational axis of the Earth doesn't turn in 'great circle in the sky' every 25900 years.It actually turns to the central Sun once every year that way and can be seen to do so by transferring interpretation of the images of Uranus to the dynamics of our planet -

http://londonastronomer.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/uranus_2001-2007.jpg

Let me help you with your confusion.If you could see the Earth from the Sun over the course of a year you would see the face of the Earth in total light.You would also see either the North pole or the South pole but not both as one or the other would have turned into the orbital shadow of the Earth or what amounts to the same thing - the side that faces away from the Sun. The North pole will be roughly 23 1/2 degree below the lighted surface and the South Pole will also be the same distance above the lighted face and they will appear to turn in a parallel direction with the ecliptic equator. The ecliptic Equator of Uranus runs almost through its rotational poles whereas the Earth's North/South poles are located roughly 66.5 degrees from the ecliptic Equator,unfortunately the image I need is a copy and paste job to demonstrate this

cogt.net/files/styles/fourcol-image/public/spacebook/Ecliptic%20repair.png

If you watched the Earth move along its orbital circumference you would see the same thing we see of Uranus as the polar coordinates are carried around in a circle to the central Sun by the orbital behavior of the planet .Get back to me when you interpret that correctly and then you will see why the Solstice alignments remain stable for thousands and thousands of years and why Newgrange and Stonehenge are excellent astronomical tools.

Can't help you with your seasonal reversals every 13000 years unless you want to chant voodoo of calendar corrections which have nothing whatsoever to do with imagined axial precession but then again precession has always been an excuse to muddy things.This you can't get out of but the whole point is that Newgrange is not only a national treasure,it is an international astronomical one as well.

Cianmcliam

But if you are using the sun as the only reference, how do you explain the equinoxes moving through the constellations according to the effects of precession?

The effect of precession has moved the rising point of the sun at the winter solstice about 1.5-2 diameters to the left on the horizon. That is the total cumulative effect of precession. It is nothing profound, pretty insignificant for Newgrange (although Frank Prendergast made new measurements and calculations and deduced the solstice sunrise will reach a point where it will not rise in the roofbox window, but that's thousands of years away). The calendar has to keep in sync with the seasons, which are determined by the tilt towards the sun as is the moment of the solstices. We will never have winter solstice in summer in the northern hemisphere, they don't switch seasons in reality but would do if we let our approximate calendar go out of sync with the actual orbit around the sun.

Orion36

Cianmcliam wrote: »

. We will never have winter solstice in summer in the northern hemisphere, they don't switch seasons in reality but would do if we let our approximate calendar go out of sync with the actual orbit around the sun.

What did I tell you about taking it up with the people promoting a reversal of the seasons between hemispheres every 13000 years via axial precession because the Solstice alignments occur on that specific day for many thousands of years going back to when the monument was constructed including the fact that the annual cycle is not based on a constant stream of 365 days in order to keep the alignments fixed to their annual Solstice/Equinox points but requires an additional day after the fourth 365 day cycle. If the building had taken 30 years to build,the builders would have already lost the alignment if they have based their year on 365 days but this fact escapes those who take a very simplistic view of the solstice alignment much less the dynamical causes behind it.


The rotational inclination of the Earth faces in the same direction to Polaris back 5200 as it does now hence the following graphic is junk from the people promoting hemispherical seasonal reversal -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Earth_axial_precession.svg

Precession is a reflection of the orbital motion of the Earth along the ecliptic and not off the celestial sphere Equator beloved of the late 17th century guys who tried to bundle daily and orbital motions off a common axis.Again,this is why Newgrange is invaluable as it highlights the development of timekeeping from the calendar and on to the 24 hour AM/PM system in tandem with the Lat/Long system. For instance,if you don't take into account the extra day with all its effect every 4th year then the alignment is gone after 20 years,if you lose the connection between the 24 hour day and the rotation of the planet then you lose the calendar system which is founded on the motion of the Earth along the ecliptic and how many natural days it takes the Earth to return to the same orbital position.

Declaring the Solstices do not budge from their respective annual points is a welcome development and the actual reason I told you that the monument is an invaluable astronomical tool along with everything else.

Don't get upset,if things were right we would be going through a lot of material including the dynamical cause for the calendar corrections,the development of the calendar itself and where it diverges from planetary dynamics and lots of other material. It can all be done with imaging and graphics but unfortunately you don't wish to acknowledge what Newgrange as a fixed annual marker can do by getting rid of extraneous junk effects that don't exist. Too many are eager to run before they can walk and precession has always,always been an excuse to make things contrived and is often the refuge for pretension.

I repeat, Newgrange and Stonehenge are astronomical treasures which obliterate less that accurate theories so unless your purpose is to demonstrate how little you know of planetary dynamics or timekeeping,I suggest you keep this in mind.

Cianmcliam

So, something that does happen doesn't, because something that doesn't happen does. I see where you are coming from now!

Orion36

Cianmcliam wrote: »

So, something that does happen doesn't, because something that doesn't happen does. I see where you are coming from now!

We are all grown people and can think for ourselves.

The Earth is 93 million miles from the Sun whereas Uranus is 1800 million miles so that when we look out at Uranus we may as well be looking at it from the central Sun so distant is that planet. What we see is a planet that appears to have the very motion described as axial precession as it completes its 8 decade orbit of the Sun -

http://londonastronomer.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/uranus_2001-2007.jpg

The Earth would have the exact same motion if it were seen from the Sun but unfortunately that turning of the polar coordinates to the central Sun is presently taken up by the notion axial precession -

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/Earth_precession.svg


What causes the seasons and why does Newgrange maintain its constant alignment for century after century ?. It happens because the Earth has two surface rotations to the central Sun,people already know this insofar as a person standing on the South Pole where daily rotation is not a factor experiences a single day/night cycle throughout a year where 6 months of daylight follow 6 months of darkness.Like daily rotation the polar day/night cycle is due to a surface rotation to the central Sun so no,the Earth does not tilt towards and away from the Sun at the Solstices,it has a second surface rotation which is clearly seen in Uranus and applicable to the Earth as well.

I really like my national monument for what it can actually do as a working astronomical monument and not least that it stands as a testament to human understanding of the great cycles that shape our lives then as now.Astronomy and terrestrial sciences have always been visual exercises and interpretative ones first and foremost but that changed a few centuries ago when an aggressive approach announced science to be a speculative/predictive affair where you could model conclusions about the future and then rig observations to suit the conclusion - we see this in what passes itself off as climate studies today. Again,this is another area where the ancient monuments are important as they hold contemporaries accountable for their assertion of axial precession and seasonal reversal but in such a way as not to throw good information after bad but rather to raise the standard of interpretation.

slowburner

Folks, this is a worthwhile, intelligent and informative debate.
I remind you that intelligent arguments attack and defend the subject and not the person uttering the argument.

Let's keep the debate intelligent.

Orion36

slowburner wrote: »

Folks, this is a worthwhile, intelligent and informative debate.
I remind you that intelligent arguments attack and defend the subject and not the person uttering the argument.

Let's keep the debate intelligent.

Imagine the possibility that visitors would arrive at Newgrange some day and hear that the monument also acts in a productive way rather than just a historical artifact of a lost civilization. This does more in terms of admiration for that ancient culture than imposing our beliefs as to how they lived,after all,to build a monument like that requires multiple disciplines from quarrying to transportation to structural integrity to social cohesion to astronomy and sometimes plain common sense.

One of the contributors to this thread declared that the Earth doesn't turn once in 24 hours without the slightest objection even though common sense and the existence of the monument itself dictates that when you wake up each 24 hour day,you are also waking up to another rotation of the planet and they never,ever fall out of step,not once in thousands and thousands of years Newgrange has been existence yet contemporaries,through a series of distortions and omitting details,force through the idea that rotations and 24 hour days fall out of step once a year ! -

" It is a fact not generally known that,owing to the difference between solar and sidereal time,the Earth rotates upon its axis once more often than there are days in the year" NASA /Harvard

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1904PA.....12..649B

We,as a nation,were held accountable for mistakes made by a small group of people and many have paid dearly by being told that the excesses were their fault despite the fact that they were encouraged to spend and speculate. In science there is no accountability so that when kids go to school their curriculum,at least in astronomy and terrestrial science subjects, is based around gross mistakes which defy common sense even for the most indifferent of readers and parents. The statement above is not only a poor assertion but a fatal mistake so that the Newgrange/Stonehenge alignments and their consistency across the Millennia force people to revisit why they maintain a fix on the Solstices via planetary dynamics.

Archaeologists may feel that they do not have to get into the astronomical details of the alignments however,as previously stated,the original civilization who built the monument had to be skilled across many disciplines and put them all together to create not only a gorgeous building but a working astronomical tool.

Zubeneschamali

Orion36 wrote: »

The topic is only for people who realize that Newgrange and Stonehenge have stable alignments for thousands of years due to the fact that the rotational axis of the Earth doesn't turn in 'great circle in the sky' every 25900 years.It actually turns to the central Sun once every year that way

As the Earth moves around its elliptical orbit, the North pole of the axis points towards the Sun causing Summer and away causing Winter, but not because the axis "turns to the central sun". This happens precisely because the axis does not turn: it remains aimed at a point near Polaris, the North Star (on a timescale of months and years).

Precession is how the axis turns, like a wobbling gyroscope, but it's on a timescale of thousands of years. The effect is to move the seasons around the earth's orbit, so that 5000 years ago, the Winter solstice would not have been near perihelion, but instead a quarter way around the Earth's orbit.

When you see references to the seasons being "reversed" every 13000 years, they don't mean the seasons suddenly flip, they mean that 13000 years ago the Northern winter happened near aphelion instead of near perihelion.

Precession changes the stars in the night sky significantly: 5000 years ago, when Newgrange was built the North pole would have been pointing at Thuban in Draco.

But this effect does not cause the Sun to move 23 degrees along the horizon at the Solstice or anything like it (although the stars behind it do change). I think the only effect here is from eccentricity, in that the Earth would have been 1% or so further from the Sun at the Solstice in 3000 BCE, moving the rising sun only a little on the horizon.

Precession is also more complicated than the precession of the axis alone, since there is also Apsidal precession happening on a longer timeframe of 134,000 years, and nutation on a shorter scale of 18 years or so.

Ipso

Orion36 wrote: »

Imagine the possibility that visitors would arrive at Newgrange some day and hear that the monument also acts in a productive way rather than just a historical artifact of a lost civilization. This does more in terms of admiration for that ancient culture than imposing our beliefs as to how they lived,after all,to build a monument like that requires multiple disciplines from quarrying to transportation to structural integrity to social cohesion to astronomy and sometimes plain common sense.

One of the contributors to this thread declared that the Earth doesn't turn once in 24 hours without the slightest objection even though common sense and the existence of the monument itself dictates that when you wake up each 24 hour day,you are also waking up to another rotation of the planet and they never,ever fall out of step,not once in thousands and thousands of years Newgrange has been existence yet contemporaries,through a series of distortions and omitting details,force through the idea that rotations and 24 hour days fall out of step once a year ! -

" It is a fact not generally known that,owing to the difference between solar and sidereal time,the Earth rotates upon its axis once more often than there are days in the year" NASA /Harvard

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1904PA.....12..649B

We,as a nation,were held accountable for mistakes made by a small group of people and many have paid dearly by being told that the excesses were their fault despite the fact that they were encouraged to spend and speculate. In science there is no accountability so that when kids go to school their curriculum,at least in astronomy and terrestrial science subjects, is based around gross mistakes which defy common sense even for the most indifferent of readers and parents. The statement above is not only a poor assertion but a fatal mistake so that the Newgrange/Stonehenge alignments and their consistency across the Millennia force people to revisit why they maintain a fix on the Solstices via planetary dynamics.

Archaeologists may feel that they do not have to get into the astronomical details of the alignments however,as previously stated,the original civilization who built the monument had to be skilled across many disciplines and put them all together to create not only a gorgeous building but a working astronomical tool.

So Newgrange was built as a pre-emptive move against the idea of percession?

Orion36

I assure everyone here that a person standing on the South pole experiences a single day and night cycle where 6 months of daylight follow 6 months of darkness hence a surface rotation where all locations on Earth,including the North/South poles turn once to the central Sun. It takes a bit of getting used to however I trust people with a higher intelligence and more precise interpretation to actually extract that surface rotation directly from imaging of a real planet hence the old idea of axial precession is gone and a new explanation for the seasons begins -


http://londonastronomer.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/uranus_2001-2007.jpg

That is how the Earth would look from the Sun regardless of differences in the degree of axial inclination so again,a more sophisticated view doesn't think in terms of the Earth's axis tilting towards and away from the Sun,they take into account the second surface rotation where the North/South poles act like a beacon for that second surface rotation.

There are unfortunate people who want it every way and imagine that axial precession turns the polar axis in a circle over a 25900 year period thereby reversing the seasons but thankfully Newgrange and Stonehenge put that notion to sleep -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Earth_axial_precession.svg

I am talking Newgrange up as an astronomical tool rather than deal with bluffers and voodoo to which they are most certainly suited,if people can genuinely extract the information from those sequence of images of Uranus and apply it to the Earth then they will understand how poor contemporaries are when it comes to astronomy and terrestrial sciences.

Newgrange is a world heritage site while understanding the Earth turns once every 24 hours is a basic human right so when these unfortunate people declare that the planet doesn't turn once in 24 hours by virtue that they can't work out the details I posted in the other thread where Sirius not only fixes the Earth's position in space but also the 1461 rotations that fit into the four orbital circuits in the format we understand them as 365/365/365/366 days and rotations.

Ultimately the objectors will shut up when asked to explain the polar day/night cycle and why it requires a surface rotation just as the daily day/night cycle requires a separate surface rotation to the Sun . I can do it with graphics and imaging for the purpose of promoting Newgrange as an amazing leveler of notions.

Orion36

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

Precession changes the stars in the night sky significantly: 5000 years ago, when Newgrange was built the North pole would have been pointing at Thuban in Draco.

But this effect does not cause the Sun to move 23 degrees along the horizon at the Solstice or anything like it (although the stars behind it do change). I think the only effect here is from eccentricity, in that the Earth would have been 1% or so further from the Sun at the Solstice in 3000 BCE, moving the rising sun only a little on the horizon.

Announcing to the world that the axis of the Earth scribes a great circle over a 25900 year period sounds great but then you have to account graphically for that assertion which looks like this and especially at 3000 BC when Newgrange was a working astronomical monument as it remains so today -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Earth_axial_precession.svg

Everything else is bluffing but the point is to explain both the seasons in new way and why Newgrange is such an international astronomical treasure where bluffing doesn't survive .Chanting voodoo may impress those who have no regard whatsoever for what our ancestors did least it disturb their own estimation of themselves while those of a genuine curiosity and a love of the ancient achievements won't feel the slightest opposition to a 21st century view nor how clever and artistic the ancient people of Ireland actually were.

Orion36

Ipso wrote: »

So Newgrange was built as a pre-emptive move against the idea of percession?

I have to shake my head sometimes.

The basic human right of every student and adult is to discover not only why they wake up to one rotation of the Earth each 24 hour day but also how it was done from principles that have their roots in antiquity and part of that I explained in the 'Christmas star' thread.

The next step of the Christmas star thread would have been to revisit the period of astronomy after Copernicus discovered the right arguments for daily and orbital motions and how they created both the 24 hour system in tandem with the Lat/Long system based on the rotation of the Earth once in 24 hours ,part of this system was created by a person probably none of you ever heard about -

“… it is with the help of these clocks and the following methods that longitude is found. … observe exactly the time at the place from which we are making our journey. … When we have completed a journey … wait until the hand of the clock exactly touches the point of an hour and, at the same moment by means of an astrolabe … find out the time of the place we now find ourselves. … In this way I would be able to find the longitude of places, even if I was dragged off unawares across a thousand miles. … it must be a very finely made clock which does not vary with change of air.” – Regnier Gemma Frisius 1553

I see all these 'thanks' for a guy who announces 366 rotations in 365 days based on his late 17th century notion that the Earth doesn't turn once in 24 hours by virtue that the cult he represents are not good enough to appreciate that the creation of the average 24 hour day from those 1461 days/ rotations which fit inside 4 orbital circumferences of the Earth serve as 'constant ' rotation insofar as average and constant are interchangeable as terms.

It is impossible,I repeat,it is impossible to appreciate Newgrange as a working astronomical monument by chanting voodoo and hope people will get lost before they understand the connection between the dynamics of the Earth and the Solstice event that is maintained year after year for thousands and thousands of years.

Zubeneschamali

Orion36 wrote: »

Announcing to the world that the axis of the Earth scribes a great circle over a 25900 year period sounds great but then you have to account graphically for that assertion which looks like this and especially at 3000 BC when Newgrange was a working astronomical monument as it remains so today -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Earth_axial_precession.svg

I already did explain it above: the solstice has moved 1//4 way around the Earth's orbit since 3000 BC. This has a very small effect on the position of sunrise on the solstice due to the fact that the Earth is now about 1% closer to the sun at the solstice than it was 5000 years ago.

The stars behind the Sun would be quite different, but Newgrange doesn't care about the stars, only the Sun.

And this is not theory, bluff or voodoo. We know what the skies looked like to the ancient Greeks, Romans and especially the Arabs. An everyday example is your newspaper horoscope: look at the dates it says the Sun is in your Zodiacal sign. They are all wrong, because of precession since Astrology was invented.

Orion36

This is just one of those rare and beautiful things that can happen ,in this case Newgrange as a working astronomical monument helps to provide a new explanation for the seasons while discounting the old idea of axial precession. Part of that explanation focuses in on the known fact that an observer standing on the South pole will experience 6 months of daylight followed by 6 months of darkness and when mixed with daily rotation at lower latitudes provides a better explanation for the seasons than the old one which relied on an inadequate tilt towards and away from the Sun.

The North and South poles act like a glimpse behind the curtain into the orbital behavior of the Earth and the new fact which drives a better explanation for the seasons,in this case -

Aside from and in addition to daily rotation,all locations on the planet turn once to the central Sun along the ecliptic plane -

http://victoriastaffordapsychicinvestigation.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/300px-axialtiltobliquity-celestial-equator-earth-has-tilted-its-axis-again-7-june-2012.png?w=600&h=465

Seen from the Sun,that would represent the Earth at the March Equinox so that in 3 months,the polar coordinate turns around in a circle parallel with the ecliptic Equator and orbital direction seen in the graphic above until it arrived at its Solstice position where the North pole would face us looking out at our planet from the Sun.


The old idea of the Earth's axis turning in a circle every 25900 years is getting in the way of the fact of the second surface rotation of the Earth which takes one year to complete . The specific surface rotation runs East to West in those images of Uranus and carries the poles in a circle around with it -

http://londonastronomer.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/uranus_2001-2007.jpg

I have to discount those people who can't accept the explanation for the polar day/night cycle much less provide one of their own least it detract from the purpose of this thread to talk up Newgrange as an invaluable astronomical tool rather than just a historical artifact with nothing more to contribute to human understanding of astronomy or terrestrial sciences.

Any teacher who goes out of their way to explain the polar day/night cycle and its cause as a second surface rotation to the Sun is also honoring the builders of Newgrange and the fact that the monument has not lost its Solstice alignment year in and year out in the thousands of years in existence. This is a standalone thread for people who admire what our ancestors rather than those who can't match up one 24 hour day with one rotation of the planet and keep them in step.