Flat Earth Astronomy: Revisiting Celestial Mechanics with Flat Earth South Pole Star Trails

In mainstream astronomy, the celestial sphere is an imaginary sphere of arbitrarily large radius, concentric with the Earth. All celestial objects are considered to be projected onto the inner surface of this sphere. Coordinates such as Right Ascension (RA) and Declination (DEC)are used to pinpoint the location of stars, much like longitude and latitude are used on Earth. This model is crucial for both the Globe and the Flat Earth perspectives as it provides a structured way to observe and categorize the movements of celestial bodies.

RA and DEC are celestial coordinates that allow astronomers to locate objects in the sky. In the Flat Earth model, these coordinates are interpreted as directions viewed from the Earth’s surface under a dome-like firmament. This ‘firmament’ concept aligns with the traditional celestial sphere used in spherical Earth astronomy,suggesting that the mechanism of locating celestial bodies using RA and DEC is fundamentally the same in both models.

Both models account for the observation that Polaris, the North Star,decreases in altitude above the horizon by approximately one degree for every 69 miles southward one travels, disappearing completely beyond the equator. Conversely, the southern celestial pole becomes visible only in the southern hemisphere, marked by a rotation of stars around a central point. This phenomenon is consistent across both models,attributed to Earth’s curvature in the Globe model and to the observer’s movement across a flat, circular Earth under a rotating dome in the Flat Earth model.

The appearance of star trails in the southern hemisphere provides significant point of discussion. In the Globe model, stars appear to rotate around the celestial poles due to Earth’s axial rotation. The Flat Earth model explains this with a dome on which stars are fixed,rotating around the observer. This dome’s behavior visually corresponds to the celestial sphere’s properties in conventional astronomy,demonstrating that the Flat Earth perspective can indeed replicate these observations through a different interpretative framework.

Fact check source journalofgeocentriccosmology.org/2024/05/04/revisiting-celestial-mechanics-a-comparative-analysis-of-flat-earth-and-spherical-earth-models/

Flat Earth Model Simulation: adl.place/shanes-fe-model
NASA JPL Horizons Geocentric Model: ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons/
Stellarium Web: stellarium-web.org/