Re: precession of mercury

On Sun, 28 Dec 2008 06:11:59 -0800 (PST), Jerry
<Cephalobus_alienus@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Dec 28, 4:55 am, hw@..(Dr. Henri Wilson) wrote:
On Sat, 27 Dec 2008 23:05:39 -0800 (PST), Jerry

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

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.

I suppose you believe that a shuttle*** does not experience
torque as it flies through the air?

I suppose you believe that a potato chip does not experience
torque if thrown through the air?

I'm not in the habit of throwing chips into the air. I suppose relativists do
it for mental stimulation.

I suppose you believe it is easy to design a satellite with large
solar panels that will not experience torque as a result of light
pressure, friction as it passes through the outer reaches of
Earth's atmosphere, or the the pressure of the solar wind?

Crank, whatever you say might be true but the plain fact is, all orbiting
telescopes are well equipped with guidance devices that enable them to be
orientated very accurately towards any desired target. I should imagine the HST
has extremely complicated and accurate tracking mechanisms.
So you are wasting time raising non-issues like this one.

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.

I can see that you are VERY confused about how parallax angles
are measured.

The RELATIVE orientation of the target with respect to angularly
close, distant reference stars needs to be measured.

I told YOU that.

Q. SO HOW DO YOU ESTABLISH THE REFERENCE STAR DISTANCES?
A. You aim your telescope at the star and measure the angular differences six
months apart.
Q. What is your reference for angle?
A. Probably the very distant fixed stars.

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.

Boy, you are DENSE!!! I meant to consider that comet tails are
pushed by the pressure of light and the solar wind into an
orientation away from the Sun. These pressures are HIGHLY
SIGNIFICANT.

Well if the telescope vehicle is at all symmetrical, it might experience a
minute acceleration but insignificant rotation. Both can be easily corrected
out.

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?

By measurement of the relative orientation of the target with
respect to angularly close, distant reference stars.

....:)
...and how was the distance to the reference stars, Crank. Stop being silly.

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)

Oh, boy... Whatever got you to dream up this one?

Stellar aberration manifests itself as an ANGULAR displacement,
not a DISTANCE displacement. You can't claim the aberration
ellipse to be 2AU by 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...

You must be one who tries to teach your grandmother how to suck
eggs. Or in this case, one who tries to teach me what I taught
YOU.

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.

In conventional parallax measurements, correcting for aberration
simply means seeing to it that the background stars match up.
Light speed considerations don't enter into matching up the
background.

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.

Any inconstancies in light speed will manifest themselves in
total chaos.

Since total chaos is not observed, BaTh is disproven.

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.

The effect of the eclipses had to be carefully studied and
factored out.

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.

Speak for yourself. Your proposal is worthless.

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

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.

What you need are reference stars with an effective distance of
"infinity", i.e. parallax effectively zero to the limits of
measurement.

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.

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.

Weaseling out of a fundamental problem with BaTh by postulating
"unification" again.

BaTh is alive and well....in fact, in the absence of an aether, it MUST BE
correct.

In your dreams.

Jerry



Henri Wilson. ASTC,BSc,DSc(T)

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

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