AstroResearch 2

Main / Wurm Universe / Astronomy / AstroResearch 2 Created and maintained by Helge

Intro

Day of Awakening, week 1 of the starfall of Fires, 991
Date of experiment: Day of the Ant, week 4 of the White Shark starfall, 988

Once again, after getting requests from several other people around the world, I've decided to study the sky once again to see if anything has changed since last, which is now almost two years ago (it was on the day of Awakening, week 2 of the Raven's starfall, 986).
A lot has happened since my last publishment. Many big things. My friends and I had to move to a new world, building up a new town from scratch. I don't remember the exact date, but some day a pack of barbarians came by and torn it all apart. I even went to the land of the dead and temporarily disappeared from this world, but the gods smiled upon me and saved me. I'm sorry that my partner, Martin, couldn't participate in the project this time. He got killed too and has completely disappeared from this world.

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Rotation center of the sky

First thing to notice is, that the sun still rises in north and sets in south. That means we're still in the middle of a pole switch.

Fast motion movie clip: http://www.helges.dk/wurm/wurm_astro.avi - requires XviD video codec
By looking at the path of the stars and the rotation center, we can confirm the first conclusions from last observation.

Conclusions:

* Wurm's geographic north (rotation center) is towards Wurm's magnetic west.
* Sun rises in magnetic north (geo. east) and sets in magnetic south (geo. west).
* Sky rotates counter-clockwise around the visible rotation center.
* We're located on the geographicaly north hemisphere of the Wurm planet (magneticaly west).

Some thoughts:
Apparently, the pole switch is taking a long time to complete.
It is even more weird that I have yet not heard of anyone getting ill by the dangerous radiation from the sun. Can it really be true that the magnetic field is still stable?

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Latitude and current axis pitch

I'm not starting all over again, and I strongly recommend readers to view my last ressearch document first.
Last time, I found out that my "eyes" had a horizontal viewing angle of exactly 70°.
The only thing changed to that is, that the resolution is now 1024x768 pixels instead of 800x600. That makes a vertical viewing angle of 70°/1024*768 = 52,5°.

With this information, it's much easier and faster for me to find the results. I don't have to use unreliable readings from trees and such to calculate angles. Two years ago, the creators of this universe confirmed that my calculations on horizontal viewing angle were correct, and I don't expect this has been changed since.

First I find the horizon, which is at the center of my view.
Then the rotation center of the sky. Out of this I can calculate the latitude.
As last time, I found the solar altitude by simply looking straight up, take a picture at 12:00 and read the angle.
Here's the picture

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Results

* Latitude (angle of rotation center): 17°

* Maximum solar altitude: 72°, west horizon (18° from being vertical).
* Axis pitch: 35°

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Final comment

I discovered a small, yet interesting change in the results since my last observation.
The latitude and axis pitch has changed slightly!
Although the new latitude is only about 0,5° greater than the last one, such small angle is quite a lot of pixels (almost 15 in this case). Even though my reading of the rotation center was not as precise this time, it's enough proof that something has changed.
I will still write the same values though, since I'm rounding down, but don't forget this is a quite big change.
Solar altitude mystericaly hasn't changed, even though this is earlier in the year than last time.

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Helge