Locating Celestial Objects

In this lesson, you will learn...

what the celestial sphere and celestial equator are, and terminology related to them how to describe the location of objects in the night sky using both the Declination - Right Ascension system and the Altitude - Azimuth system

Looking Up...
Early astronomers believed that all of the stars we see in the night sky were fixed on a celestial sphere surrounding the Earth. Although we now know that this is not true, it is easier to use this idea to locate stars in the sky.

The Celestial Sphere

The celestial sphere is a dome that surrounds the Earth. It is divided in much the same way as we divide Earth with the North and South celestial poles as an extension of the Earths axis. The celestial equator is a projection of Earths equator onto the sphere.
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The Celestial Sphere showing the celestial North and South poles and the celestial equator.
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 As the Earth rotates inside the celestial sphere (or, as early astronomers believed, the sphere rotates around us) the stars appear to rise in the east and then set in the west. This of course includes our own star, the Sun.

Locating Stars
Astronomers use a coordinate system similar to the latitude-longitude system used on Earth to locate stars in the sky.

There are two different coordinate systems:

But first, a little terminology

 The ecliptic is the apparent path of the Sun in one year. It is also along the plane in which the Earth revolves around the Sun. The summer solstice is the day of the year that the northern hemisphere gets the most sun. The winter solstice is when we get the least sunlight (and the southern hemisphere gets the most).

The vernal equinox is the day in the spring when we get exactly 12 hours of day and 12 hours of night. The autumnal equinox is the same thing, but occurs in the fall (autumn).
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System 1: Declination - Right Ascension

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Declination
Declination is analogous to latitude and is measured in degrees from the celestial equator. Measurements of declination are either positive (north) or negative (south).

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Right Ascension
Right ascension is analogous to longitude and is measured in hours, minutes, and seconds, from the point of vernal equinox (where the ecliptic and celestial equator meet). Since a circle is 360o (and it has been broken into 24 parts) each hour is 15o.

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 Breaking that hour (15o) into 60 pieces gives us minutes, and breaking minutes into 60 pieces given us seconds.

For example: If the star was located at an angle of 50o, this would equate to 3 hours or 3h 20 m.
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Example:

The star in this picture has...

Declination: 45o Right Ascention: 3h

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System 2: Altitude-Azimuth

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Altitude
Altitude is the angular distance (measured from 0o to 90o) of a celestial object above the observers horizon.

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Zenith
The zenith is the name given to a spot in the sky directly over the observers head. The zenith distance is the complimentary angle to the altitude (they add to 90o).
Example: If the altitude was 32o, the zenith distance would be 58o (together totaling 90o).
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Azimuth
Azimuth is the compass angle from due N to the location of the celestial object.

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Example:
The star in this picture appears to have an altitude of approximately 40o (which means it's zenith angle is 50o) and an azimuth of about 200o (just over halfway around the circle, starting from North and going clockwise).

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Angular Sizes
We can measure angles in the sky

The angular size of an object like the Sun or the Moon is the angle it appears to span in your field of view.
The angular distance between a pair of objects is the angle that appears to separate them..

To Polaris

Angular size of moon ~ o

Angular distance between the pointer stars ~ 5o