NATS 1745 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Celestial Pole, Circumpolar Star, Celestial Sphere
12 Feb 2016
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The celestial sphere is an imaginary sphere, where we can imagine the stars, sun, The celestial sphere seems like it rotating about an axis, but really the earth is rotating. We can only see one half of the celestial sphere, from a given point on the earth. Our horizon marks the bottom of the part of the sky (or hemisphere) that we can see. The horizon changes, depending on your location on the earth. The meridian is an imaginary line drawn from the north celestial pole, through the zenith. Connects north to south: start at north celestial pole, draw through the zenith and continue south to the horizon. Looking north from our perspective, the altitude (angular height) of the pole star is equal to our latitude (in toronto: ____________ degrees). Stars which circle the pole star throughout the night, and do not rise or set are called circumpolar stars.
