Re: precession of mercury

On Sat, 27 Dec 2008 23:05:39 -0800 (PST), Jerry
<Cephalobus_alienus@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Dec 27, 5:28 pm, hw@..(Dr. Henri Wilson) wrote:
On Sat, 27 Dec 2008 03:14:11 -0800 (PST), Jerry

Well, if the telescope does not spin on its own axis, the whole field of view
moves in an ellipse but does not spin.

How do you propose to arrange for the telescope to be pointed
perpetually in one direction in space? You'd be surprised how
much torque is exerted on the telescope due to the outer fringes
of Earth's atmosphere, solar wind, light pressure, etc.

Hahahha! You are funny sometimes Crank.
How much atmosphere do you think there is at 36000 km?

Matter density equivalent to about 100 protons/cm^3, roughly an
order of magnitude denser than the interplanetary medium. Next
question?

That will slow it down rather than cause it to rotate...if it is made properly.

Any object including a telescope will normally have NO tendency to rotate.

You are proposing to hold the telescope fixed in space with a
rotation rate less than, say, 0.1 mas/year without the aid of
guide stars. You stated, "My idea is not to use a guide star but
to keep the telescope pointed in exactly the same direction
without spin..."

This is absurd.

How do you think parallax angles are measured. The exact orientation has to be
known... six months apart.

Consider comet tails. You'd be surprised how much torque is
exerted on the telescope due to the outer fringes of Earth's
atmosphere, solar wind, light pressure, etc.

How many comet tails go past every day Crank. I think you're becoming desperate
again.

No, you need at least two distant reference points for getting
the telescope oriented...

Are you suggesting that the operators of the Hipparcos or HS telescope have no
idea where it is aiming?

No, I am suggesting that you are clueless.

How do you think parallax was measured in the old days?

The sideways displacement due to
aberration for any particular star is the same throughout out the year no
matter what its emitted light speed wrt Earth. Thus, relative star movement
caused by parallax or proper speed should be easy to measure.

It's easy to measure against the backdrop of distant stars, but
this effort is not assisted in any measure whatsoever by your
worthless proposal.

I haven't made any particular proposal. ...merely stating a fact.

Falsehoods and half-facts.

if the
telescope is placed in an ecliptic plane obit and does not rotate, then
everything in the field of view will be approximately the same

Keyword here is "approximately".

It will be displaced in an elliptical path, the major axis being 2AU and the
minor being 2AU.sin(a)....BUT IT WILL NOT ROTATE

but will be
displaced in small circles,

"Circles"?

OK, ellipses.

the size of which depends on either aberration or
parallax...or both. It might be difficult or impossible to separate the two
even with a 90 deg phase difference.

What are you babbling about?

Didn't you know that the displacement due to aberration is 90 out of phase with
that due to parallax? I didn't think you did...

The topic at hand relates to Paul's claim that aberration from quasars was not
observed outside the Earth's atmosphere

That was not Paul's claim. The FACT is that the observed
aberration of quasars and distant galaxies is identical to the
observed aberration of close stars, whereas BaTh predicts the
contrary.

when BaTh says it should be.
I am trying to point out that aberration can easily be confused with other
factors if constant light speed is assumed.

What other factors?

What is observed is the Willusion.
The true relative positions of stars in the viewing area is not what they
appear to be..
Parallax and aberration displacements are out of phase. If correcting for the
former is based on constant light speed, then assessed parallax angles will be
wrong. The same applies to secular aberration. If star positions and movements
are based on constant ligth speed to Earth, any calculations based on those
factors are likely to be wrong.

A satellite in ecliptic orbit around the Earth will see
superimposed on the yearly stellar aberration ellipse of 20.5"
semimajor axis smaller ellipses whose period will correspond to
the satellite's orbital period about the Earth, and whose semi-
major axes will depend on the satellite's orbital velocity.

So there is no benefit at all to an ecliptic orbit.

There are enormous benefits.

None. Nada. Zilch.

Even Wikipedia can give some idea of the complications:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberration_of_light
(Diagram about halfway down)

What would have been of great benefit to Hipparcos was if the
satellite had been successfully inserted into its nominal orbit.
High above the Earth, it would have experienced eclipses only
around equinox time, its slower, more uniform speed would have
necessitated simpler aberration corrections, and it would not
have experienced as much radiation damage through repeated
passages through the Van Allen belts.

An ecliptic orbit, by the way, would have made eclipses a year-
round affair.

that is what happened.....every orbit....The eclipse didn't last for long and
apart from a small loss of power did not affect the performance

I was speaking of the NOMINAL orbit. -Your- "nominal" orbit would
cause eclipses every day throughout the year.

Only small ones. So what? No stars are permanently blocked.

Thermal cycling. Every time Hipparcos went into shadow, the
solar panels would buckle, and the effect was a noticeable glitch
in the data which needed to be modeled. YOUR proposed orbit
would result in daily eclipses, whose effect would need to be
modeled.

Hipparcos experienced daily eclipses adn seemed to function OK.
It could have been sent into a very large ecliptic orbit so the eclipse
duration would be minimised.

I will even concede that tilting the orbit very slightly wrt the ecliptic plane
would reduce the problem without requiring major corrections for the various
angles.

The Hipparcos telescope was meant to be sent into an ecliptic orbit.

Nope. It was meant to be sent into a geostationary orbit.

Well the designers are only human .... and are not infallible.

Speak for yourself. Your proposal is worthless.

The logical orbit for parallax measurements is an ecliptic plane one. Admit it.

That's called making use of guide stars, an old technique.

I should imagine so...but in the Hipparcos case the thing is spinning around a
tilted axis that precesses. ...so whenever it is in EXACTLY the SAME
orientation, it should be looking at the same field slightly offset by
aberration but with relative star positions altered only by parallax.

You seem to think that parallax measurements must be made with
respect to the telescopic field. Hence your crap about needing
to hold the telescope absolutely steady throughout the year.

In reality, parallax measurements are made with respect to the
background of distant stars.

That's right. It uses relative displacements of the stars in the field. But the
actual orientation of the telescope must be accuratly known at all times.

For relative measurements, why do you need absolute orientation?

So that the distance of at least one star in the field can be calculated. The
relative movements of the other stars then indicates their distances relative
to the known one.

No...I doubt you can. OK. Figure 7 km/s orbital velocity for HST
works out to about 5" semimajor axis for the aberration ellipse.
At 90 degrees normal to the HST orbital plane, the aberration
takes on a circular pattern, so the semiminor axis is 5". In
the plane of the HST orbit, the semiminor axis is zero. Divide
5" by 5400 minutes of arc in a right angle, equals on average
1 mas stellar aberration discrepancy per minute of arc difference
in declination between guide star and target.

Did you follow? A similar type of estimate can be made for
differences in right ascension between guide star and target.

My idea is not to use a guide star but to keep the telescope pointed in exactly
the same direction without spin...so the whole image is simply displaced in an
elliptical manner but does not spin in the viewing field.

How do you arrange for a spinless satellite? You'd be surprised
how much torque is exerted on the telescope due to the outer
fringes of Earth's atmosphere, solar wind, light pressure, etc.

Gyros. They have to be used anyway. At 36000km, there aren't many factiors that
will cause a rotation.

One way or another you need guide stars. But as I explained
earlier, there are limitations in the basic guide star technique.
All of the major space observatories (Compton, Chandra, Hubble,
Spitzer, etc.) have used computer-guided active steering to
compensate for aberration due to their orbits around the Earth.

If a guide star is used, yes. That's not all that difficult.

As I stated, there are LIMITATIONS to relying solely on guide
stars. The aberration ellipse traversed by a guide star 1 degree
separated from its target will, for the HST, be mismatched from
the aberration ellipse traversed by the target by an average of
50 mas in semi-minor axis and/or in longitudinal phase.

Do you understand now why your proposal is worthless as regards
the needs of high precision astrometry and high precision
imaging?

From what you have said, I understand that many Hipparcos figures are probably
in considerable error because they are based on all light traveling to Earth at
speed c.

There is ZERO EVIDENCE for variable speed of light in the
Hipparcos data. As Paul has explained, variable speed of light
would have major consequences which are NOT OBSERVED.

There is no evidence for the simple fact that it is ASSUMED to be true.
Since it cannot be true, all Hipparcos results are wrong.

It is not a matter of presumption. It is a matter of MEASUREMENT.

BaTh predicts differential aberration for objects with varying
radial velocities towards or away from Earth. Differential
aberration is not observed, therefore BaTh is disproven.

BaTh says all light moving in a particular direction TENDS TOWARDS the same
speed.
BaTh is alive and well....in fact, in the absence of an aether, it MUST BE
correct.

Jerry




Henri Wilson. ASTC,BSc,DSc(T)

www.users.bigpond.com/hewn/index.htm.

......
.

Relevant Pages

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