Thursday, July 06, 2006

Maybe worth a look

by geophile

A Sky Dome Visualization for Identification of Astronomical Orientations

Here is a link to:
"an abstract on a paper that presents a novel diagram combining archaeological maps with a folded-apart, flattened view of the whole sky, showing the local horizon and the daily paths of the Sun, Moon and brighter stars. By use of this diagram, interesting groupings of astronomical orientation directions, for example, to certain sunrise and sunset points could be identified, which were evidently used to mark certain days of the year.

Orientations towards rising and setting points of a few significant stars very likely indicated the beginning of the agricultural year in the middle neolithic period."

My dial-up was too slow to allow me to download the necessary PDF file, but all of you out there who have computers not powered by dinosaurs pulling a turbine should have no problem. It certainly sounds useful.

Nice picture on the linked page--seems to place the Pleiades, so important and so often overlooked, over the central post.

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