Once again, the photo bears no relevance to the title of tonight’s post. I am convinced that around this cone in the cockle pond, thrown in a while ago by some scholar, there is a good picture. I haven’t found it yet. Hopefully, Streetscene will remove the cone before too long.
The title of tonight’s post is an astronomical term and is crucial to something that I am trying to get to grips with. The more I learn about the subject, it helps make it just that little bit clearer. How to find a star or other stellar object, and I have to confess, it takes a bit of getting used to. But learning about it (and the term First Point of Aries was new to me at the astronomy course on Monday.
I mentioned Right Ascension and Declination in https://localitystories.com/2026/09/21/2101-hampshire-astronomy-group/
For some reason, WordPress isn’t working properly tonight. In order to RA & Dec to work you have to imagine that the sky is mapped out in a way that resemble longitude and lattitude on Earth. as The Greenwich Meridian is the zero point for measurements west and east, so The First Point of Aries is the zero point for RA & Dec.
Right Ascension is measured in hours and minutes, and is the is the equivalent of latitude, how far are objects east or west of the zero point, and longitude is the height above the celestial equator.
My apologies if I got even slightly technical here, but it helps me think things out.
