The fault, dear Brutus

[altariel]

I'm writing a story for a LoTR round robin, in which a character is being taught about the constellations and the stars by another character, his grandfather. I've picked Sirius.

Now, I know nothing about the stars, so I've been learning all this as I go along. If I'm making some mistakes, I'd be really grateful if someone could point them out.

By use of this very clever website, I've got the latitude of the place where the story is set, and the time at which the sun rises and sets on a particular day in the month when the round robin participants have decided this story is taking place.

Then I was sent to a very clever piece of software which tells me what time Sirius would appear above the horizon at that latitude on that same day.

I want to set the story in the early evening.

My problem is that Sirius seems to set round about 6pm, while the sun sets around 7.30pm.

My questions is would Sirius actually be visible at all? And am even asking the right kinds of questions here?

Various people have said to me: 'I think you can have some creative licence here...' or 'Fudge it.' But I think this kind of attention to detail matters in a Tolkien story.

Comments

[ithilwen.livejournal.com]

Sounds to me like you'd be better off picking another star.
:( Learning all the constellations takes about year, for precisely the reason you've just discovered - the night sky has "seasons". Sounds like Sirius is out-of-season for you at the time this story is set.

What date is the story taking place on? I enjoy astronomy, so I'd be happy to give you a hand with this particular project if you want it.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Sounds to me like you'd be better off picking another star.

I was afraid someone was going to say that... *g*

I'd really appreciate a hand, thank you. The story is meant to be set at the start of July. I picked Sirius because it already had some mythology attached to it, but mostly to tie it in with another story I'd already written.

But what I basically need is a single, bright star that would be visible on an evening in early July (7th or 8th), preferably one that I could hang some of Tolkien's mythology around, but I'd be content to make something up.

[ithilwen.livejournal.com]

Why not use Altair (the first-magnitude star in the constellation Aquila)? It's very bright and conspicuous, and it's high enough in the eastern sky in the early evening hours of July to be spotted easily (in fact, it will be obvious all night, if you want Faramir and his granddad to stay up late after all). And Aquila means "eagle"; Tolkien conveniently gave us a constellation name Soronume, which also means "eagle", and could plausible be associated with the very conspicuous constellation of Aquila. The stellar Eagle of Manwe, perhaps?

Other possibilities: Vega (in Lyra), Deneb (in Cygnus), Regulus (in Leo), Spica (in Virgo), Arcturus (in Bootes), Alphecca (in Corona Borealis), Antares (in Scorpius). All would be easily visible in the early evening hours in July. Constellations that lack a single prominent star, but are easily recognizable include Sagittarius, Cassiopeiea, and Ursa Major (the Big Dipper) and Ursa Minor (the Little Dipper). I'm assuming you want fairly obvious constellations and stars, not faint ones you have to really work hard to see. If you can do faint constellations in the story, the list grows even longer!

Hope this helps! Let me know if you've got other questions I can help you with as you plan the story

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[altariel.livejournal.com]

Now Altair and Aquila are extremely tempting... I had my eye on Arcturus too - someone else in the round robin has taken Lyra already. Oh, now Cygnus would be good, given that this is set in Dol Amroth!

Would Polaris be visible? I don't know if it would be bright enough. I could work in some maritime themes around that one, I think.

Thank you, Ithilwen! This is really extremely helpful!

[ithilwen.livejournal.com]

Yes, Polaris would be easily visible (it's circumpolar in the Northern Hemisphere, and being only about 2 degrees away from the Celestial North Pole, it never sets). It's not an extremely bright star, only 2nd magnitude, but since I can spot it without any trouble in my suburban backyard, I think it's safe to assume that Faramir would have no trouble spotting it in Minas Tirith, which would be much less light polluted (torches being far less efficient than electric streetlights!).

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[altariel.livejournal.com]

Thanks again for all this, Ithilwen. I've settled on Cygnus, as I thought this would be a good way for the Prince of Dol Amroth to tell his grandson the story of Amroth and Nimrodel, and of Mithrellas. So I guess the lesson in the story would be teaching the child how the history he learns is not just abstract, but is directly related to his heritage in some way. I have yet to think this through so this might all be a bit garbled as yet...

But thanks to you I think I have another two stories that I could happily tell! There's a more maritime one about Polaris. Also, I saw that Soronume would be in the northern sky, and I like the idea of a story about an Eagle of the Star that's associated with the North...

Thank you again for all your help. Now all I have to do is work out what 'precession of the equinoxes' means and I'll feel like I've made a massive leap in my understanding of the universe *g*

Light pollution... I've always lived in very polluted, urban areas (the town I used to live in outside London (Reading, it's just south of Oxford) is in the Thames Valley, and is so urbanized and light polluted that we would get the dawn chorus all night). When I went to the South Island of NZ, it was just amazing... I didn't know the sky and the stars could be so clear.

[ithilwen.livejournal.com]

I've settled on Cygnus, as I thought this would be a good way for the Prince of Dol Amroth to tell his grandson the story of Amroth and Nimrodel, and of Mithrellas.

Oh, that should work very well!

Also, I saw that Soronume would be in the northern sky, and I like the idea of a story about an Eagle of the Star that's associated with the North...

Hate to disappoint you, but Aquila isn't exactly a "northern" constellation. To view it, you have to look south, not north (although it rises fairly high overhead on summer nights). It actually lies just a bit south and east of Cygnus.

Still no reason not to use Aquila for your "Eagle of the Star" story, though.

As an aside, Deneb (in Cygnus), Vega (in Lyra), and Altair (in Aquila) form a conspicuous asterism called the Summer Triangle. It's a good landmark for a beginning stargazer to learn, as it can be used as a jumping-off point to learning many of the other constellations. Go out yourself and look for it high in the sky this summer!

Thank you again for all your help. Now all I have to do is work out what 'precession of the equinoxes' means and I'll feel like I've made a massive leap in my understanding of the universe *g*

Ever see a spinning top? As the top starts to slow, it begins to wobble on its axis while it spins. Well, that's what the spinning earth is doing - it wobbles as it rotates, just like a slowly spinning top. That means that the position of Celestial North and Celestial South (the points about which the sky seems to turn, which mark the axis of the Earth's rotation projected upward into the heavens) aren't fixed; they slowly change, tracing out a large circle over the course of about 50,000 years. The result of that slow wobble is that the rising and setting of the all the constellations shifts slowly; it's noticeable only over the course of millennia. When the Julius Caesar ruled Rome, Polaris was NOT the North Star (at that time, there was NO bright star near the North Celestial Pole, and the Romans had to use the Big Dipper as a very crude indicator of which way north lay). When the Egyptians were building the Pyramids, the pole star was a rather faint star in the constellation of Draco, called Thuban. The bright star Vega (in Lyra) actually lies along the path the earth's axis traces across the sky; in another 20,000 years or so, Vega will be the Pole Star. And then the constellations of Orion and Canis Major (which contains Sirius) will actually be visible on summer evenings.

This is where Tolkien shows he's a casual nature lover, and not an astronomer. When Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin are walking about the Shire and meet the Elves, he describes the rising of Taurus - which is indeed a constellation you'd see rising late at night on a fall evening. But unless the Third Age is separated from our own Age by 60,000 years (so that the position of the North Celestial Pole in Frodo's day is essentially the same as our own), Frodo and Co. shouldn't see Taurus rising in autumn at the same time we see it rising today. (Of course, we CAN fudge a bit, since Tolkien didn't give an exact time for when Frodo sees the Pleiades rising; maybe the timing IS off compared to modern times, just not by a lot).

Of course, Tolkien's in good company; after all, Shakespeare had Julius Caesar saying "I am as constant as the Northern Star"!

Light pollution... I've always lived in very polluted, urban areas (the town I used to live in outside London (Reading, it's just south of Oxford) is in the Thames Valley, and is so urbanized and light polluted that we would get the dawn chorus all night). When I went to the South Island of NZ, it was just amazing... I didn't know the sky and the stars could be so clear.

Light pollution is evil; it robs people of the Universe. Everyone deserves to see the REAL night sky at least once in their life.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Hate to disappoint you, but Aquila isn't exactly a "northern" constellation. To view it, you have to look south, not north

*Altariel wanders off to look at map again: picture Altariel with straining neck and screwed up eyes*

Yep, you're right - misread the map!


Ever see a spinning top?

[snips rest of excellent explanation] Right! That makes sense now! Thank you!


Of course, Tolkien's in good company; after all, Shakespeare had Julius Caesar saying "I am as constant as the Northern Star"!

:-D

[(Anonymous)]

Sirius would not be visible. You have three options:

1) Pick a different astronomical object. Venus (or should I say Earendil) would be worth checking out.

2) Do what Arthur C Clarke would do: go ahead with Sirius, but precede your story with a short note explaining that you know very well that Sirius should have set in real life, but it was thematically important that it be Sirius so you decided to move it 30 degrees in the sky.

3) Do what Tolkien would do: use Sirius, and create a mammoth myth cycle climaxing with a violent and terrible divine intervention in which the orientation of the celestial sphere is abruptly shifted in order to account for the inconsistency. Make no mention of this collossal epic in your story itself, apart from a subtle allusion in the philological roots of a minor character's nickname.

Iain

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[altariel.livejournal.com]

And this is presumably why I prefer Tolkien to Clarke.

Earendil has already gone, alas - someone took that for the first chapter.

Looks like it's gotta be option 3. Now where's that Quenya dictionary...

[ithilwen.livejournal.com]

*snerk* You're absolutely right about number 3; that's exactly how the Professor would have handled it!

Of course, something along those lines MUST have happened in Middle Earth at some point anyway, since the constellations Frodo sees rising during his hike through the Shire in FotR seem to match up pretty well with our current autumn constellations - which shouldn't be the case. The effects of precession of the equinoxes would be quite pronounced over the tens of thousands of years that separate the Third Age from our own time.

So maybe Una's story is set before this colossal act of Divine meddling, and young Faramir CAN see Sirius on a warm Midsummer's evening. Of course, it's odd that no one in LotR makes even the slightest allusion to this recent cosmic upheaval (which occurred within the lifetimes of all the story's major characters), but then again, they WERE a bit preoccupied...

(Sorry, but the explanation that Tolkien probably wasn't aware of the effects of precession of the equinoxes is just TOO prosaic for me.)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

So maybe Una's story is set before this colossal act of Divine meddling, and young Faramir CAN see Sirius on a warm Midsummer's evening. Of course, it's odd that no one in LotR makes even the slightest allusion to this recent cosmic upheaval (which occurred within the lifetimes of all the story's major characters), but then again, they WERE a bit preoccupied...

Maybe it all happened on that day when the Sun doesn't rise. Or, perhaps it happens later in the Fourth Age. If the upheaval was massive enough, it would also explain why we've never found any archaeological remains from Gondor and Arnor...


(Sorry, but the explanation that Tolkien probably wasn't aware of the effects of precession of the equinoxes is just TOO prosaic for me.)

Those kinds of explanation are never as much fun!

[ithilwen.livejournal.com]

Maybe it all happened on that day when the Sun doesn't rise. Or, perhaps it happens later in the Fourth Age. If the upheaval was massive enough, it would also explain why we've never found any archaeological remains from Gondor and Arnor...

No, it has to happen sometime between Faramir's childhood (when he can see Sirius on a warm summer evening), and the first chapters of FotR (when Frodo and Co. see Taurus rising late in the evening on an autumn night, just as it does today). That's what - a 30 year time-span, at most? So it's odd that no one mentions this great cataclysm. Maybe they're still too traumatized by the memories? (After all, the last one sank Numenor; who knows what was destroyed in this one?)

And then, we'll need yet ANOTHER cosmic upheaval to explain why precession of the equinoxes hasn't changed the rising time of Taurus between Frodo's day and our own, despite only 20,000 years or so separating our Age from the Third Age. THAT must be the cataclysm that destroys the remains of Gondor and Arnor.

This is fun! Anyone out there up for myth-making?

[altariel.livejournal.com]

we'll need yet ANOTHER cosmic upheaval to explain why precession of the equinoxes hasn't changed the rising time of Taurus between Frodo's day and our own, despite only 20,000 years or so separating our Age from the Third Age. THAT must be the cataclysm that destroys the remains of Gondor and Arnor.

This is fun! Anyone out there up for myth-making?

This is definitely a Nuzgul with your name on it!

[ithilwen.livejournal.com]

(backs up VERY slowly, while keeping a wary eye on the Nuzgul...) No. Oh, no. I don't do myth-making. Angst, yes. Crazy Feanorians, yes. Fairy-tale adaptations and mutated 20th century history fics, yes. But not myth-making. THIS Nuzgul, Altariel, is all yours.

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[altariel.livejournal.com]

No way! I'm already intending to rewrite the Akallabeth - that'll be enough for one lifetime!

Hm, wonder who can we set this nibbler on...?

[ithilwen.livejournal.com]

Toss it out on HA, or throw it in the Hutch at HASA. Just keep it away from me, please! Maedhros won't forgive me if I start working on anything but his (now long-interrupted) Alqualonde story at this point.

[executrix.livejournal.com]

When does Sirius appear? All depends on which owl Harry sends, dunnit.

Re RL bruises: . But I'm sure your viva will be a triumph.

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[altariel.livejournal.com]

Thanks :)