This is an opportunity for astronomers to correct a very old
astronomical error from 1677.It requires only a stopwatch and a
sighting of a star over the course of two axial rotations of the Earth
and demonstrates that the axial rotation of the Earth through 360
degrees is not and cannot be 23 hours 56 min 04 sec as almost all
commentators indicate.

http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/academy.../sidereal.html




Reed Riddle wrote in message ...




The Earth rotates in 23h 56m 4s with respect to the stars (and galaxies
and quasars). That is all that matters.

Reed

--
Dr. Reed L. Riddle
Associate Director of Whole Earth Telescope Operations
Iowa State University Department of Physics & Astronomy
Email: drriddle "at" qwest.net
Homepage: http://wet.physics.iastate.edu/~riddle/



1 axial rotation through 360 degrees = 23 hours 56 min 04 sec

2 axial rotations through 360 degrees = 47 hours 52 min 08 sec

I assure anyone who checks using a stopwatch that it is a mathematical
and astronomical certainty that a star will NOT return to the same
position in the sky after 47 hours 52 min 08 sec (which corresponds to
2 sidereal days).

The conclusion is simple,Flamsteed's 1677 premise and method of proof
for determining the constant axial rotation of the Earth is not only
mathematically incorrect but also observationally incorrect.Here is a
brief introduction to Flamsteed's premise -

"One of Flamsteed's first projects at the Royal Observatory was to
attempt to prove that the Earth rotated on its axis at a constant
rate. This had been assumed by Copernicus when he first put forward
his theory of the solar system but it had never been
proved....Flamsteed used the star Sirius as a timekeeper correcting
the sidereal time obtained from successive transits of the star into
solar time, the difference of course being due to the rotation of the
Earth round the Sun. Flamsteed wrote in a letter in 1677:-

.... our clocks kept so good a correspondence with the Heavens that I
doubt it not but they would prove the revolutions of the Earth to be
isochronical"

http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~his...ongitude2.html

An amateur astronomer using only a stopwatch can affirm that after two
revolutions of the Earth through 360 degrees,a star will NOT align
back to the same position after 47 hours 52 min 08 sec ( 23 hours 56
min 04 sec X 2 ) subsequently Flamsteed's premise and proof (as is Mr
Reed's) that the Earth maintains constant axial rotation to a stellar
framework is incorrect.