dipper@utastro.UUCP (Debbie Byrd) (11/30/84)
What stars you see in the sky depends on where Earth is in its orbit around the sun. More -- after this. November 30 The Best Seats on the Planet Night falls when Earth's rotation carries us out of sight of the sun -- and into the darkness of our own planet's shadow. We see the light of stars other than our sun only when our particular region of the Earth turns away from the solar glare. WHICH stars we see depends on where our planet is in its orbit -- what direction in space the nightside of Earth faces -- and just where WE happen to be standing on the surface. The panorama of the sky appears to change over the year as the Earth orbits the sun -- but it's OUR viewpoint that's changing. The same stars in the Milky Way galaxy always surround us in space. The star patterns we see when our planet is on one side of the sun would appear to move aross the dome of our sky during daylight -- when Earth is on the opposite side of the sun. If you walk out around midnight tonight -- look up at the stars in the middle of this late autumn night. Then think ahead six months. Imagine standing at the same place you would be at midnight tonight -- again looking up at the sky. Instead of bare branches on trees and cold weather it's almost summer time and the noon sun is above your head. The star patterns you would see at midnight tonight are the same patterns you would see at noon on a day six months from now -- if you could turn out that summer sun. Script by Diana Hadley and Deborah Byrd. (c) Copyright 1983, 1984 McDonald Observatory, University of Texas at Austin