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Old January 22nd 19, 04:54 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Quadibloc
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Default Referencing our planet to the Sun

On Monday, January 21, 2019 at 3:09:14 PM UTC-7, Gerald Kelleher wrote:
Perhaps the one issue which distinguishes the astronomy I practice from celestial sphere enthusiasts is that I incorporate the inner solar system and the
central Sun rather than restricting the view to the distant stars as the original Sun centred astronomers did or worse still, the motion of the stars in
stellar circumpolar motion which tries to reference the Earth's rotation to 'above' and the local horizon .


The world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars
Still strove, with his last ounce of courage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQizNZKiyYs

The only problem is that this song is from the Broadway play "Man of La Mancha",
which is adapted from the novel _Don Quixote_... about a man who charges at
windmills in the mistaken belief that they are some sort of monster menacing the
countryside.

The Earth's orbit around the Sun is elliptical, so the direction from the Earth
to the Sun doesn't change uniformly. To treat the Earth as a physical rotating
body, following the same laws as a child's top, one can't use a complicated
variable reference, which is why the fixed stars must be used instead.

And as this leads to the *right answers*, empiricists rest content that they are
doing the right thing.

John Savard