100 million years ago

Zague wrote:
My question may call for an obvious answer but I need confirmation
anyway. My planetarium software doesn't go back far enough (-99 999 BC
for Starry Night) and I don't have access to it now. I might have seen
that the sky is already unrecognizable 104,000 years ago.

Would it be safe to say that, except for the Milky Way, the Moon and
planets, the nightsky would have looked totally alien to us because
nearby stars would be in much different positions in the sky?

Is there any big feature that would be noticeable then that I'm
missing.

Is there a place on the web where simulations, as imprecise as they can
turn going that far in time, can be run just to give me an impression
of what it could have been.

Thanks!

Zague

The moon might have looked totally alien to you as well, since you'd be
able to see a lot more detail with the naked eye. It was a bit closer
then, as I recall. ;-)

Uncle Bob

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Uncle Bob wrote:
The moon might have looked totally alien to you as well, since you'd be
able to see a lot more detail with the naked eye. It was a bit closer
then, as I recall. ;-)

A hundred million years isn't quite enough to make much of a difference
visually with the Moon. Remember that it's only about 2 percent of the
age of the Earth and Moon, and hence the Moon can't have been much closer
then than it is now--probably a matter of 5 or 10 thousand kilometers.

I wonder how many people note that the Moon is some 12 percent wider at
perigee than it is at apogee.

Brian Tung
The Astronomy Corner at http://astro.isi.edu/
Unofficial C5+ Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/c5plus/
The PleiadAtlas Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/pleiadatlas/
My Own Personal FAQ (SAA) at http://astro.isi.edu/reference/faq.txt

One of the club members in Rochester, NY made a movie out of a full
lunation(?). Not only did it show the full sequence of phases it also
showed the size differences and the "wobble(?)" of the moon. (Where you can
see a bit more then 50% of the surface of the Moon).
--
Michael A. Barlow

"John Steinberg" wrote in message
...
Byron Elbows wrote:

I wonder how many people note that the Moon is some 12 percent wider at
perigee than it is at apogee.

Oh, call on me, PLEASE! I do, I do!

See:
http://nexstar5.0catch.com/perigeemoon/perigeemoon.htm

But no carping about the pop-ups, pop-unders and assorted other crud -
it's not my doing.

--
-John Steinberg
email: lid

On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 15:53:52 GMT, "Michael Barlow"
wrote:

One of the club members in Rochester, NY made a movie out of a full
lunation(?). Not only did it show the full sequence of phases it also
showed the size differences and the "wobble(?)" of the moon. (Where you can
see a bit more then 50% of the surface of the Moon).

How did he arrange for good weather for that time frame or was this
done over several months?
-Rich

"RichA" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 15:53:52 GMT, "Michael Barlow"
wrote:

One of the club members in Rochester, NY made a movie out of a full
lunation(?). Not only did it show the full sequence of phases it also
showed the size differences and the "wobble(?)" of the moon. (Where you
can
see a bit more then 50% of the surface of the Moon).

How did he arrange for good weather for that time frame or was this
done over several months?
-Rich

I can only assume over a large span of time.
--
Michael A. Barlow