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Latitude and Longitude
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Created for the OAE
Caption: Two views of the Earth, one viewing the Northern Hemisphere, one viewing the Southern Hemisphere. The Earth rotates around its axis, an imaginary line that runs through the Earth from the North Pole to the South Pole. The Equator is an imaginary line that is the same distant from both the North Pole and the South Pole.
The positions of two cities, Rome in the Northern Hemisphere and Sydney in the Southern Hemisphere are marked here with red dots. Arrows indicate the two spherical coordinates latitude and longitude.
Latitude marks the position north or south of the equator. Here we can see Rome has the letter N in its latitude as it is in the Northern Hemisphere and Sydney has the letter S in its latitude as it is in the Southern Hemisphere. Latitude can vary from 90° N at the North Pole to 0° at the Equator to 90° S at the South Pole.
Longitude measures the position around the equator. While the choice of the zero point for latitude as the equator seems obvious, the choice of the zero point for longitude is more subjective. By convention the zero point in longitude is the prime meridian which passes through the Royal Greenwich Observatory in the UK. This is marked here as a solid line originating at the North Pole. Longitude is measured in degrees east or west of the prime meridian. As both Rome and Sydney lie to the east of Greenwich, they have the letter E as part of their longitude. Moving west to east, longitude varies from 180° W on the other side of the world from the prime meridian to 0° on the prime meridian before reaching 180° E again on the other side of world from the prime meridian.
This diagram shows the Earth at the December solstice. Two views are presented, one viewing the Northern Hemisphere and one viewing the Southern Hemisphere about nine hours later. The shaded region shows the night side of the Earth, with the day side being lighter. As it is the December solstice, the Sun appears overhead at the Tropic of Capricorn. This is a line of constant latitude at 23°26′09.3″ S. Six months later, at the June solstice, the Sun will appear to be overhead at the Tropic of Cancer at 23°26′09.3″ N. As the Sun appears over the Tropic of Capricorn more of the Southern Hemisphere is illuminated than the Northern Hemisphere. Indeed below the Antarctic Circle (the Polar Circle around the South Pole) the Sun does not set at this time of year leading to a Polar Day. Conversely, north of the Arctic Circle (the Polar Circle around the North Pole) the Sun does not rise at this time of year, leading to a Polar Night.
Credit: Maria Cristina Fortuna/IAU OAE
Glossary Terms:
Earth's Rotation , Equator , Latitude , Longitude , Polar Circle , Earth's Axis , Tropic , Polar Day , Polar Night , Tropic of Cancer , Tropic of Capricorn , Tropics , North Pole , South Pole
Categories:
Naked Eye Astronomy
License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) icons
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Capricornus Constellation Map
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Caption: The constellation Capricornus (commonly called Capricorn) including its bright stars and surrounding constellations. Capricornus is surrounded by (going clockwise from the top) Aquarius, Aquila, Sagittarius, Microscopium and Piscis Austrinus. Capricornus lies on the ecliptic (shown here as a blue line), this is the path the Sun appears to take across the sky over the course of a year. The Sun is in Capricornus from mid January to mid February. The other planets of the Solar System can often be found in Capricornus.
Capricornus lies just south of the celestial equator and is visible to all observers south of the Arctic Circle. Capricornus is most visible in the evenings in the northern hemisphere autumn and southern hemisphere spring.
In the south east (lower left on this diagram) of the constellation one can find the globular cluster M30 (shown here as a yellow circle with a plus sign superimposed on it).
The y-axis of this diagram is in degrees of declination with north as up and the x-axis is in hours of right ascension with east to the left. The sizes of the stars marked here relate to the star's apparent magnitude, a measure of its apparent brightness. The larger dots represent brighter stars. The Greek letters mark the brightest stars in the constellation. These are ranked by brightness with the brightest star being labeled alpha, the second brightest beta, etc., although this ordering is not always followed exactly. The dotted boundary lines mark the IAU's boundaries of the constellations and the solid green lines mark one of the common forms used to represent the figures of the constellations. Neither the constellation boundaries, nor the line marking the ecliptic, nor the lines joining the stars appear on the sky.
Credit: Adapted by the IAU Office of Astronomy for Education from the original by IAU/Sky & Telescope
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Glossary Terms:
Apparent Magnitude , Capricornus , Celestial Coordinates , Constellation , Declination , Ecliptic , Globular Cluster , Right Ascension (RA) , Zodiac , Aquarius , Sagittarius , Tropic of Capricorn
Categories:
Naked Eye Astronomy
License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) icons
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