On Wednesday, April 4, 2018 at 7:20:14 PM UTC-6, palsing wrote:
On Wednesday, April 4, 2018 at 2:37:33 PM UTC-7, Gerald Kelleher wrote:

The RA/Dec observers try their level best to equate circumpolar motion to
daily rotation and that uses up the observation of the motion of the stars

Gerald, that is not the case and you know it. Why do you promote such crap?

What is the rotation period of the Earth?

Professional astronomers, and scientists in general, will in fact answer "23
hours and 56 minutes" to that question.

As that is what he means by "equate circumpolar motion to daily rotation", even
if something _else_ "is not the case" (for example, no astronomer would claim
that the period of the apparent motion of the stars equals the length of the
day; they know the two are four minutes different) I am puzzled by your comment.

Maybe if he had said "the Earth's rotation" instead of "daily rotation", his
meaning would be clearer to you?

John Savard