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Old July 10th 18, 07:45 AM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Quadibloc
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Default Making astronomy attractive for experimentalists

On Monday, July 9, 2018 at 2:15:59 PM UTC-6, Gerald Kelleher wrote:
but like so many, you have no feeling for the basic astronomical fact that each
day/night cycle is a result of one rotation.


Feelings have nothing to do with it.

Apparent stellar circumpolar motion, unlike sundial time, synchronizes to
mechanical clockwork, so the *mathematics* of the Earth's rotation becomes simpler
when we use the fixed stars, not the Sun, as the reference to define rotation.

Feelings certainly do have an important place in life, but the physical sciences
are tied to mathematics and deal with that which is objective. And doing things
that way works well, yielding impressive results.

John Savard