Time from Big Dipper/Polaris positions?

Was recently reading a sci-fi/alternate history tale and stumbled onto
something that caught my attention, as it's always been an "I wonder..."
concept in the back of my brain. Please note that, although it is indeed
a work of fiction, the author has an absolute fetish for "as much
reality as possible within the limits set by my MacGuffin" - Much of his
text is, in fact, devoted to clear explanations (some of which I know
from my own experience to be very accurate, and several others that I
don't have first-hand experience of, but know from reading and other
info-sources to be slightly "dumbed down", but otherwise basically
sound, descriptions) of using "old style" technology.

Here's the relevant passage -

He could just see the north star and the dipper between the leaves of
the two cottonwoods, and he lined them up and did the trick. Draw a line
through, from the north star to the top two stars of the dipper. Treat
that as the hand of a clock. Add an hour for every thirty days after
March 7, double the figure, and subtract it from 24. That gave you the
time. And he made it 0300 hours, give or take.

Now, based on this "trick", I've been trying to get a sensible result,
but so far, having little luck.

I walk outside, locate polaris and the dipper. So far, so good. First
question, though - Where is "twelve o'clock"? I've been going with the
assumption that if I "drop a line" from Polaris to the horizon, where
that line hits the horizon is "six o'clock".

Next question: "The top two stars of the dipper" - OK... Which ones are
"the top"? My assumption so far has been that he means the two I've
always been told are commonly called "the pointers" - A line connecting
them together, then continuing for approximately 6 times the apparent
distance between them ends at Polaris - thus, they "point" at the north
star.

So, with that in mind, I'm looking at the sky, seeing the dipper, seeing
polaris, and the pointers/Polaris form a line that's real close to
pointing at 9-o'clock - Maybe 8:45, maybe 9:15, but reasonably close
enough to 9. So 9+5 (give or take a day or few, 5 30-day periods since
March 7) equals 14. Double that to get 28. 28 from 24 is -4. So it's
"minus 4 o'clock". Uh... Not according to any clock *I've" ever seen...
And besides - my wris****ch says it's just after 11PM.

Where am I going wrong?

Or is the "trick" just a handy fictional device?

(But like I said above, the author is a stickler for reality other than
specific effects of his MacGuffin - there are several things in his text
that are accurate enough for any reasonably intelligent person to use
them as instructions and get good - perhaps not "master craftsman"
level, but "good enough" - results)

--
Security provided by Mssrs Smith and/or Wesson. Brought to you by the letter Q

On Thursday, July 10, 2014 11:17:24 AM UTC-7, Don Bruder wrote:
Was recently reading a sci-fi/alternate history tale and stumbled onto

something that caught my attention, as it's always been an "I wonder..."

concept in the back of my brain. Please note that, although it is indeed

a work of fiction, the author has an absolute fetish for "as much

reality as possible within the limits set by my MacGuffin" - Much of his

text is, in fact, devoted to clear explanations (some of which I know

from my own experience to be very accurate, and several others that I

don't have first-hand experience of, but know from reading and other

info-sources to be slightly "dumbed down", but otherwise basically

sound, descriptions) of using "old style" technology.



Here's the relevant passage -



He could just see the north star and the dipper between the leaves of

the two cottonwoods, and he lined them up and did the trick. Draw a line

through, from the north star to the top two stars of the dipper. Treat

that as the hand of a clock. Add an hour for every thirty days after

March 7, double the figure, and subtract it from 24. That gave you the

time. And he made it 0300 hours, give or take.



Now, based on this "trick", I've been trying to get a sensible result,

but so far, having little luck.



I walk outside, locate polaris and the dipper. So far, so good. First

question, though - Where is "twelve o'clock"? I've been going with the

assumption that if I "drop a line" from Polaris to the horizon, where

that line hits the horizon is "six o'clock".



Next question: "The top two stars of the dipper" - OK... Which ones are

"the top"? My assumption so far has been that he means the two I've

always been told are commonly called "the pointers" - A line connecting

them together, then continuing for approximately 6 times the apparent

distance between them ends at Polaris - thus, they "point" at the north

star.



So, with that in mind, I'm looking at the sky, seeing the dipper, seeing

polaris, and the pointers/Polaris form a line that's real close to

pointing at 9-o'clock - Maybe 8:45, maybe 9:15, but reasonably close

enough to 9. So 9+5 (give or take a day or few, 5 30-day periods since

March 7) equals 14. Double that to get 28. 28 from 24 is -4. So it's

"minus 4 o'clock". Uh... Not according to any clock *I've" ever seen...

And besides - my wris****ch says it's just after 11PM.



Where am I going wrong?



Or is the "trick" just a handy fictional device?



(But like I said above, the author is a stickler for reality other than

specific effects of his MacGuffin - there are several things in his text

that are accurate enough for any reasonably intelligent person to use

them as instructions and get good - perhaps not "master craftsman"

level, but "good enough" - results)



--

Security provided by Mssrs Smith and/or Wesson. Brought to you by the letter Q

Here you go...

http://www.physics.ucla.edu/~huffman/dtime.html

.... the part you left out, or perhaps the author left out, was that the 'face of a clock' is supposed to be a 24-hours clock, not a 12-hour clock.

\Paul A

On Thursday, July 10, 2014 11:17:24 AM UTC-7, Don Bruder wrote:
Was recently reading a sci-fi/alternate history tale and stumbled onto

something that caught my attention, as it's always been an "I wonder..."

concept in the back of my brain. Please note that, although it is indeed

a work of fiction, the author has an absolute fetish for "as much

reality as possible within the limits set by my MacGuffin" - Much of his

text is, in fact, devoted to clear explanations (some of which I know

from my own experience to be very accurate, and several others that I

don't have first-hand experience of, but know from reading and other

info-sources to be slightly "dumbed down", but otherwise basically

sound, descriptions) of using "old style" technology.



Here's the relevant passage -



He could just see the north star and the dipper between the leaves of

the two cottonwoods, and he lined them up and did the trick. Draw a line

through, from the north star to the top two stars of the dipper. Treat

that as the hand of a clock. Add an hour for every thirty days after

March 7, double the figure, and subtract it from 24. That gave you the

time. And he made it 0300 hours, give or take.



Now, based on this "trick", I've been trying to get a sensible result,

but so far, having little luck.



I walk outside, locate polaris and the dipper. So far, so good. First

question, though - Where is "twelve o'clock"? I've been going with the

assumption that if I "drop a line" from Polaris to the horizon, where

that line hits the horizon is "six o'clock".



Next question: "The top two stars of the dipper" - OK... Which ones are

"the top"? My assumption so far has been that he means the two I've

always been told are commonly called "the pointers" - A line connecting

them together, then continuing for approximately 6 times the apparent

distance between them ends at Polaris - thus, they "point" at the north

star.



So, with that in mind, I'm looking at the sky, seeing the dipper, seeing

polaris, and the pointers/Polaris form a line that's real close to

pointing at 9-o'clock - Maybe 8:45, maybe 9:15, but reasonably close

enough to 9. So 9+5 (give or take a day or few, 5 30-day periods since

March 7) equals 14. Double that to get 28. 28 from 24 is -4. So it's

"minus 4 o'clock". Uh... Not according to any clock *I've" ever seen...

And besides - my wris****ch says it's just after 11PM.



Where am I going wrong?



Or is the "trick" just a handy fictional device?



(But like I said above, the author is a stickler for reality other than

specific effects of his MacGuffin - there are several things in his text

that are accurate enough for any reasonably intelligent person to use

them as instructions and get good - perhaps not "master craftsman"

level, but "good enough" - results)



--

Security provided by Mssrs Smith and/or Wesson. Brought to you by the letter Q

Here you go...

http://www.physics.ucla.edu/~huffman/dtime.html

.... the part you left out, or perhaps the author left out, was that the 'face of a clock' is supposed to be a 24-hours clock, not a 12-hour clock... and, it runs BACKWARDS!

\Paul A

In article , Don Bruder wrote:

Here's the relevant passage -

He could just see the north star and the dipper between the leaves of
the two cottonwoods, and he lined them up and did the trick. Draw a line
through, from the north star to the top two stars of the dipper. Treat
that as the hand of a clock. Add an hour for every thirty days after
March 7, double the figure, and subtract it from 24. That gave you the
time. And he made it 0300 hours, give or take.

Now, based on this "trick", I've been trying to get a sensible result,
but so far, having little luck.

I walk outside, locate polaris and the dipper. So far, so good. First
question, though - Where is "twelve o'clock"? I've been going with the
assumption that if I "drop a line" from Polaris to the horizon, where
that line hits the horizon is "six o'clock".

Next question: "The top two stars of the dipper" - OK... Which ones are
"the top"? My assumption so far has been that he means the two I've
always been told are commonly called "the pointers" - A line connecting
them together, then continuing for approximately 6 times the apparent
distance between them ends at Polaris - thus, they "point" at the north
star.

So, with that in mind, I'm looking at the sky, seeing the dipper, seeing
polaris, and the pointers/Polaris form a line that's real close to
pointing at 9-o'clock - Maybe 8:45, maybe 9:15, but reasonably close
enough to 9. So 9+5 (give or take a day or few, 5 30-day periods since
March 7) equals 14. Double that to get 28. 28 from 24 is -4. So it's
"minus 4 o'clock". Uh... Not according to any clock *I've" ever seen...
And besides - my wris****ch says it's just after 11PM.

Where am I going wrong?

Or is the "trick" just a handy fictional device?

The instruction was "Add *an hour* for every thirty days after March 7".
If you add five hours to 9:00 you get 2:00 (OK, 1400 hours, but you
already found the problem with that). 24 - 2*2 = 20 = 8:00 PM.

But wait a minute. March 7. April, May, June, July 7. That's four
months, not five. Add four hours to 9:00 and get 1:00. 24 - 2*1 = 22 =
10:00 PM. That's beginning to sound sensible.

--
Kathy Rages

Don Bruder wrote:
Was recently reading a sci-fi/alternate history tale and stumbled onto
something that caught my attention, as it's always been an "I wonder..."
concept in the back of my brain. Please note that, although it is indeed
a work of fiction, the author has an absolute fetish for "as much
reality as possible within the limits set by my MacGuffin" - Much of his
text is, in fact, devoted to clear explanations (some of which I know
from my own experience to be very accurate, and several others that I
don't have first-hand experience of, but know from reading and other
info-sources to be slightly "dumbed down", but otherwise basically
sound, descriptions) of using "old style" technology.

Here's the relevant passage -

He could just see the north star and the dipper between the leaves of
the two cottonwoods, and he lined them up and did the trick. Draw a line
through, from the north star to the top two stars of the dipper. Treat
that as the hand of a clock. Add an hour for every thirty days after
March 7, double the figure, and subtract it from 24. That gave you the
time. And he made it 0300 hours, give or take.

Now, based on this "trick", I've been trying to get a sensible result,
but so far, having little luck.

I walk outside, locate polaris and the dipper. So far, so good. First
question, though - Where is "twelve o'clock"? I've been going with the
assumption that if I "drop a line" from Polaris to the horizon, where
that line hits the horizon is "six o'clock".

Next question: "The top two stars of the dipper" - OK... Which ones are
"the top"? My assumption so far has been that he means the two I've
always been told are commonly called "the pointers" - A line connecting
them together, then continuing for approximately 6 times the apparent
distance between them ends at Polaris - thus, they "point" at the north
star.

So, with that in mind, I'm looking at the sky, seeing the dipper, seeing
polaris, and the pointers/Polaris form a line that's real close to
pointing at 9-o'clock - Maybe 8:45, maybe 9:15, but reasonably close
enough to 9. So 9+5 (give or take a day or few, 5 30-day periods since
March 7) equals 14. Double that to get 28. 28 from 24 is -4. So it's
"minus 4 o'clock". Uh... Not according to any clock *I've" ever seen...
And besides - my wris****ch says it's just after 11PM.

Where am I going wrong?

Or is the "trick" just a handy fictional device?

(But like I said above, the author is a stickler for reality other than
specific effects of his MacGuffin - there are several things in his text
that are accurate enough for any reasonably intelligent person to use
them as instructions and get good - perhaps not "master craftsman"
level, but "good enough" - results)


If you buy a planisphere suitable for your latitude you can work out the
time directly as long as you know the date.


http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...938029/skymaps

In article ,
palsing wrote:

On Thursday, July 10, 2014 11:17:24 AM UTC-7, Don Bruder wrote:
Was recently reading a sci-fi/alternate history tale and stumbled onto

something that caught my attention, as it's always been an "I wonder..."

concept in the back of my brain. Please note that, although it is indeed

a work of fiction, the author has an absolute fetish for "as much

reality as possible within the limits set by my MacGuffin" - Much of his

text is, in fact, devoted to clear explanations (some of which I know

from my own experience to be very accurate, and several others that I

don't have first-hand experience of, but know from reading and other

info-sources to be slightly "dumbed down", but otherwise basically

sound, descriptions) of using "old style" technology.



Here's the relevant passage -



He could just see the north star and the dipper between the leaves of

the two cottonwoods, and he lined them up and did the trick. Draw a line

through, from the north star to the top two stars of the dipper. Treat

that as the hand of a clock. Add an hour for every thirty days after

March 7, double the figure, and subtract it from 24. That gave you the

time. And he made it 0300 hours, give or take.



Now, based on this "trick", I've been trying to get a sensible result,

but so far, having little luck.



I walk outside, locate polaris and the dipper. So far, so good. First

question, though - Where is "twelve o'clock"? I've been going with the

assumption that if I "drop a line" from Polaris to the horizon, where

that line hits the horizon is "six o'clock".



Next question: "The top two stars of the dipper" - OK... Which ones are

"the top"? My assumption so far has been that he means the two I've

always been told are commonly called "the pointers" - A line connecting

them together, then continuing for approximately 6 times the apparent

distance between them ends at Polaris - thus, they "point" at the north

star.



So, with that in mind, I'm looking at the sky, seeing the dipper, seeing

polaris, and the pointers/Polaris form a line that's real close to

pointing at 9-o'clock - Maybe 8:45, maybe 9:15, but reasonably close

enough to 9. So 9+5 (give or take a day or few, 5 30-day periods since

March 7) equals 14. Double that to get 28. 28 from 24 is -4. So it's

"minus 4 o'clock". Uh... Not according to any clock *I've" ever seen...

And besides - my wris****ch says it's just after 11PM.



Where am I going wrong?



Or is the "trick" just a handy fictional device?



(But like I said above, the author is a stickler for reality other than

specific effects of his MacGuffin - there are several things in his text

that are accurate enough for any reasonably intelligent person to use

them as instructions and get good - perhaps not "master craftsman"

level, but "good enough" - results)



--

Security provided by Mssrs Smith and/or Wesson. Brought to you by the
letter Q

Here you go...

http://www.physics.ucla.edu/~huffman/dtime.html

... the part you left out, or perhaps the author left out, was that the 'face
of a clock' is supposed to be a 24-hours clock, not a 12-hour clock.


Actually, after reading Kathy's post and that page, I figured out where
I was going wrong - 2 places, actually... 1: it's *4* months past March
7, not 5. 2: It's daylight savings time currently. So 9 + 4 = 13 * 2 =
26, 26 from 24 = -2 = 22:00, then add an hour for DST to get to 23:00 =
11PM means "The problem exists due to the idiot user's mis-application
of the algorithm" - A classic case of GIGO...

Thanks folks. Got to gawking at the forest and face-planted into a tree
I didn't notice.

--
Security provided by Mssrs Smith and/or Wesson. Brought to you by the letter Q

In article merica,
() wrote:

In article , Don Bruder wrote:

Here's the relevant passage -

He could just see the north star and the dipper between the leaves of
the two cottonwoods, and he lined them up and did the trick. Draw a line
through, from the north star to the top two stars of the dipper. Treat
that as the hand of a clock. Add an hour for every thirty days after
March 7, double the figure, and subtract it from 24. That gave you the
time. And he made it 0300 hours, give or take.

Now, based on this "trick", I've been trying to get a sensible result,
but so far, having little luck.

I walk outside, locate polaris and the dipper. So far, so good. First
question, though - Where is "twelve o'clock"? I've been going with the
assumption that if I "drop a line" from Polaris to the horizon, where
that line hits the horizon is "six o'clock".

Next question: "The top two stars of the dipper" - OK... Which ones are
"the top"? My assumption so far has been that he means the two I've
always been told are commonly called "the pointers" - A line connecting
them together, then continuing for approximately 6 times the apparent
distance between them ends at Polaris - thus, they "point" at the north
star.

So, with that in mind, I'm looking at the sky, seeing the dipper, seeing
polaris, and the pointers/Polaris form a line that's real close to
pointing at 9-o'clock - Maybe 8:45, maybe 9:15, but reasonably close
enough to 9. So 9+5 (give or take a day or few, 5 30-day periods since
March 7) equals 14. Double that to get 28. 28 from 24 is -4. So it's
"minus 4 o'clock". Uh... Not according to any clock *I've" ever seen...
And besides - my wris****ch says it's just after 11PM.

Where am I going wrong?

Or is the "trick" just a handy fictional device?

The instruction was "Add *an hour* for every thirty days after March 7".
If you add five hours to 9:00 you get 2:00 (OK, 1400 hours, but you
already found the problem with that). 24 - 2*2 = 20 = 8:00 PM.

But wait a minute. March 7. April, May, June, July 7. That's four
months, not five. Add four hours to 9:00 and get 1:00. 24 - 2*1 = 22 =
10:00 PM. That's beginning to sound sensible.

Yep, and as noted in my reply to Palsing, +1 for PDT = 11PM = Well
waddaya know! I was doing the addition and doubling mod 24 instead of
mod 12, so of course things came out wonky.

Ever felt tu stoopid to live? :-P

Ah well - Live-n-screw-up. And hopefully learn from it

--
Security provided by Mssrs Smith and/or Wesson. Brought to you by the letter Q

In article
-septem
ber.org,
Mike Collins wrote:

Don Bruder wrote:
Was recently reading a sci-fi/alternate history tale and stumbled onto
something that caught my attention, as it's always been an "I wonder..."
concept in the back of my brain. Please note that, although it is indeed
a work of fiction, the author has an absolute fetish for "as much
reality as possible within the limits set by my MacGuffin" - Much of his
text is, in fact, devoted to clear explanations (some of which I know
from my own experience to be very accurate, and several others that I
don't have first-hand experience of, but know from reading and other
info-sources to be slightly "dumbed down", but otherwise basically
sound, descriptions) of using "old style" technology.

Here's the relevant passage -

He could just see the north star and the dipper between the leaves of
the two cottonwoods, and he lined them up and did the trick. Draw a line
through, from the north star to the top two stars of the dipper. Treat
that as the hand of a clock. Add an hour for every thirty days after
March 7, double the figure, and subtract it from 24. That gave you the
time. And he made it 0300 hours, give or take.

Now, based on this "trick", I've been trying to get a sensible result,
but so far, having little luck.

I walk outside, locate polaris and the dipper. So far, so good. First
question, though - Where is "twelve o'clock"? I've been going with the
assumption that if I "drop a line" from Polaris to the horizon, where
that line hits the horizon is "six o'clock".

Next question: "The top two stars of the dipper" - OK... Which ones are
"the top"? My assumption so far has been that he means the two I've
always been told are commonly called "the pointers" - A line connecting
them together, then continuing for approximately 6 times the apparent
distance between them ends at Polaris - thus, they "point" at the north
star.

So, with that in mind, I'm looking at the sky, seeing the dipper, seeing
polaris, and the pointers/Polaris form a line that's real close to
pointing at 9-o'clock - Maybe 8:45, maybe 9:15, but reasonably close
enough to 9. So 9+5 (give or take a day or few, 5 30-day periods since
March 7) equals 14. Double that to get 28. 28 from 24 is -4. So it's
"minus 4 o'clock". Uh... Not according to any clock *I've" ever seen...
And besides - my wris****ch says it's just after 11PM.

Where am I going wrong?

Or is the "trick" just a handy fictional device?

(But like I said above, the author is a stickler for reality other than
specific effects of his MacGuffin - there are several things in his text
that are accurate enough for any reasonably intelligent person to use
them as instructions and get good - perhaps not "master craftsman"
level, but "good enough" - results)


If you buy a planisphere suitable for your latitude you can work out the
time directly as long as you know the date.


http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...938029/skymaps

Not interested in buying anything. Just trying to verify the validity of
the "trick". Other replies elsethread figured out where I was going
wrong. Now I've got the knack of it.

--
Security provided by Mssrs Smith and/or Wesson. Brought to you by the letter Q

In 23 hours and 56 minutes and 4 seconds, the earth has rotated exactly
once in relation to the "fixed stars", or from the reference of someone
looking down on the solar system from a distance. However, during that
time the earth has moved somewhat in its orbit around the sun so the sun
isn't in exactly the same place any more. It takes another 4 minutes for
the sun to return to the same spot, a total of exactly 24 hours.

On Friday, July 11, 2014 4:09:04 PM UTC+1, Michael Moroney wrote:
In 23 hours and 56 minutes and 4 seconds, the earth has rotated exactly

once in relation to the "fixed stars", or from the reference of someone

looking down on the solar system from a distance. However, during that

time the earth has moved somewhat in its orbit around the sun so the sun

isn't in exactly the same place any more. It takes another 4 minutes for

the sun to return to the same spot, a total of exactly 24 hours.

You are bluffers as usual, the Lat/Long system organized around the Earth rotation is built on the average 24 hour day which in turn is derived from the return of the Sun to a meridian in anything other than 24 hours. You freaks have been trying to bridge the gap between the homocentric observation of the return of a star with the daily return of the Sun to the same meridian.

It is one of the oldest known astronomical principles and even if Huygen's statement needs a huge modification to allow for the apparent annual motion of the stars behind the foreground central Sun in order to fix the Earth's position in space, the fact is that for each noon cycle, it is not 24 hours from one cycle to the next which scuppers this stupid 'solar vs sidereal' fiction -

" Here take notice, that the Sun or the Earth passeth the 12. Signes,or makes an entire revolution in the Ecliptick in 365 days, 5 hours 49 min. or there about, and that those days, reckon'd from noon to noon, are of different lenghts; as is known to all that are vers'd in Astronomy" Huygens

With 21st century imaging it is possible to modify the technical element of Huygen's statement by including the natural noon cycle of February 29th which requires the EoT adjustment like all the other cycles. It wouldn't appeal to mindless leap second proponents and their rotating celestial sphere system but for this 21st century astronomer it is fairly easy enough to change the appearance of Huygen's statement while keeping the variations in natural noon cycles intact.

You are like infants lost in the world of men,after all,anyone who equates stellar circumpolar motion with daily rotation and then assigns an imbalance between rotations and days ain't no astronomer or much else.