Proposal for astronomers: how to verify in the earth's axis tilted in the last months.

Hello, I follow ATS for a while now and I decided to subscribe and propose astromers whit good digital camaras to do a little experiment which will be able to show if the earth's axis has tilted with a significant percentage in the past months.

Take a picture whit the time exposure set to 5-6 hours of the north star.
If the axis has moved significantly, the north star will appear to describe a arc of a circle on the photo.

Is the simplest way to prove if the axis tilted significaly.

Anyoane interested in this little experiment?

After then I propose to upload the photos on ats.

Please excuse any grammar or spelling mistakes.

Good luck.

I got something easier.

Solargraphs.

They plot the suns movement through the sky every day.

This one was taken over 6 months to June 21st 2011.

Any shift would be visible.

www.spaceweather.com...

That's the biggest wormhole I've seen..

Start a thread Chad..

My husband works at an international airport here were they live they had to "move" the airport because the cupass and the GPS didn't match.

www.freerepublic.com...

www.npr.org...

reply to post by Ladysophiaofsandoz


That bears no relation whatsoever to the question asked and is a completely normal phenomena. It's to do with the difference between magnetic north and "True North". Magnetic north is where a normal, magnetic compass points. This is the magnetic north pole which is somewhere over northern Canada and is continually on the move in a regular, measurable way. True North is reference to the actual physical north pole. This is what GPS systems, gyro compasses and fibre-optic compasses make reference to. The difference between the two is known as variation. Nautical charts have this value printed on them and give a figure for its change every year. It's easily conceivable that if a runway's number isn't changed for ten years or so it would need changing up or down one number (they only refer to the nearest ten degrees e.g runway 27 could have a bearing between 266 and 275).

As to the earlier poster who suggested photographing Polaris...

Polaris isn't perfectly above the North pole. There is a small discrepancy between Polaris and the North pole. Always has been. Norie's nautical tables give tables for using a sextant sight of Polaris to calculate your Latitude. If it was perfectly aligned with the north pole there would be no need for these as the calculation would simply be to subtract the angle from 90 degrees.

Norie's table have been in use for marine navigation for several hundred years.

Conceivably then, if a camera is able to measure a small arc in Polaris it is explainable.

Originally posted by oriondreamer
Hello, I follow ATS for a while now and I decided to subscribe and propose astromers whit good digital camaras to do a little experiment which will be able to show if the earth's axis has tilted with a significant percentage in the past months.

This isn't a method astronomers would use. They measure tilt to a tiny fraction of a degree, far smaller increments than would show up in a photograph like that.

The March 2011 Japan quake shifted the axis by about 10cm or 4 inches, but that only amounts to two thousandths of an arc-second.

And the tilt is decreasing daily but by far smaller amounts that won't show up in an ordinary photo.

Why do you ask?

It seems like the site mechanism for the 20 post minimum before thread starting is on the fritz.

reply to post by Chadwickus


the sun will plot in different spots each day because of the earths axis. you would have to track the sun during the spring and fall equinox or during the same day each year. The difference in angle is what gives us the seasons.
Better off using the north star so you can see if there is any movement over each day!

reply to post by nosacrificenofreedom

the sun will plot in different spots each day because of the earths axis. you would have to track the sun during the spring and fall equinox or during the same day each year. The difference in angle is what gives us the seasons.

I know how it works, that's why you can only do 6 months of it, otherwise it would start to clutter the image.

What it shows though, if there were a large shift in axis, it would be visible in these solargraphs, let alone that it would be noticeable all over the place.

Anyone live in New York?
We have a few minutes before we can get a really quick indication.
en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by Phage

Good timing. I missed that one, maybe Montrealhenge tomorrow?