Saturday, March 09, 2019

[juvujjer] Planets clock

Create a clock in which each hand represents the location of a planet in the sky as seen from Earth.  The location of a hand represents its separation angle from the sun along the ecliptic.

Mark the sun permanently at 6:00, the bottom of the clock face.  The Mercury and Venus hands do not make a complete turns around the face; instead, they oscillate like a pendulum.  (A complicated pendulum when retrograde motion happens.)

The hands of the planets beyond Earth's orbit do make full rotations.  The Uranus hand turns approximately once per human lifetime.

Let hand angles to the left of the sun (6:00 to 11:59) represent planets in the evening sky, and to the right represent morning.  A planet at 12:00 is at oppositon; it is high in the sky at midnight.  6:00 simultaneously represents (roughly) 6pm sunset and 6am sunrise.

The sun travels through the constellations of the zodiac once per year.  This could be represented in various ways.  A rotating outer dial marked with the names of the constellations would also be useful for conveying (roughly) what constellation the planets are in.  Also, mark bright stars that are near the ecliptic.

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