Re: More star crib proposals

["John Grove" <4groves@xxxxxxxxx>]

The last star crib suggestions made me ponder the page once again... First,
my disclaimer: I'm not an astronomer and that may well be evident in what I
suggest.

I believe this page could work out as a marker for seasons, but I think the
number of stars in between each set of labels varies for a reason. I then
supposed that it was a measurement of so many degrees - Aldebaran with 11
degrees, Aquarius water jug with 14 degrees, the Three stars with 18
degrees, and lastly the Two stars with 16 degrees.

After lots of trial and error on my starmap program which I set to the
1500's, I managed to come up with the following 'rough' lines of thought
(that require someone more knowledgeable about astronomy to make accurate -
if possible):

First, the labelled stars represent a zodiac that is -2h30 from the Sunrise,
hereafter called RP. I took a location from around 55 degrees north - as it
worked best at getting the altitudes I was looking for.

On Dec 21st with Scorpio at RP, Star named Sabik is about 18 degrees
altitude. It is possible to make the triangle out of Sabik at the point,
Zeta Ophiuci on the upper side, and Antares on the lower side.
On Mar 21st with Aquarius at RP, (My program doesn't have names for these
stars but has them numbered) - the forward star Nr 554 is about 14 degrees,
with star nr 360 behind it in between stars 1114 and 444.
On June 21st with Taurus located at RP - Aldebaran is approximately 11
degrees in altitude.
On Sep 21st with Leo at RP, the two stars of one of Leo's front legs run
along the ecliptic with Regulus behind star 452. Star 452 is unfortunately
at 32 degrees (vice the 16 stars that I would have used to find the
altitude: although 16x2 fits)

    For what it's worth from a non-astronomer looking at star charts!

    John.



----- Original Message -----
From: Brian Eric Farnell <bfarnell@xxxxxxx>
To: Voynich List <voynich@xxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2000 6:42 PM
Subject: Re: More star crib proposals


>
>
> "Bradley E. SCHAEFER" wrote:
> >
> > Hi;
> >         Below is another attempt to name the stars that appear in the
> > 'Pleiades' diagram.  It sounds reasonalbe...
> > Cheers,
> > Brad
> > So I'm not sure if I've been any help at all, but I've had fun (and
found
> > yet another application for the invaluable Guide software).
> >
> > Yours sincerely,
> > George Gilbart-Smith
> > georgegs@xxxxxxxxx
>
> Way beyond my area of knowledge, but anyone using Unix or Linux
> can get some great open source software astronomy software
> called 'xephem'.  Sky & Telescope did a review and really liked
> it, though they said it was a bit difficult to use.  I
> downloaded my RPM for Mandrake from the Mandrake site and there
> are other ready to load RPMs and Debs out there, though the
> homepage makes it look like you have to compile it yourself.
> Regards,
> Brian
>