Polaris Askew
on Apr 9

On a night of clear skies near Madison, WI Polaris was located in relationship to the Big Dipper (Ursa Major). The streets in towns in the Midwest are laid out on N/S E/W lines. The viewing location was one block from the corner of a surveyed 40 acre plot, which formed the cross roads of the town. All the streets in that flat area were based on this survey, which matched 40 acre surveys going in all directions, no skew possible. All the buildings are likewise laid out to face N/S or E/W, precisely. Thus, in sighting true geographical North, a guide was at hand.

At 9:45 PM CDT on April 9, 2004, the Big Dipper was too far to the WEST. Where Skymap expects the Big Dipper to be sprawled from 15° to 60° in the NE it was found from 0° to 45° in the NNE. This placement was incorrect even for a December timeframe, thus showing that the Big Dipper was being viewed too far to the West due to a LEAN in the Earth's posture. Polaris was an estimated 7-8° to the West.

In determining where the Earth is in relationship to constellations, one must consider the view from Earth. If the Earth is halted in her orbit at the Dec 25 point, as Planet X is in front of her, blocking her way, then a TILT forward would leave Polaris in the North position, but move it closer to the horizon. This is shown below in the Side View. The LEAN toward Planet X would cause Polaris and related constellations to appear to move toward the WEST. This is shown below in the Top View.

The place where this measure was taken is to the left of the red star, at the end of the street, where the 'e' in the West St word lies. Streets dead N/S, E/W.

I checked on mapquest and it does look like your streets are lined up presicely to true north - south, so a good measure.

Steve Havas

Steve reports this askew also, but in a different direction, thus the wobble puzzle continues. This measure was taken 3 hours after the Wisconsin measure.

I got some measurements tonight, looking North from my 3rd floor patio. I zoomed in on my street on mapquest to see how I lined up to true north (assuming mapquest is accurate) and it looks like my street is off by 1.5° east. At around 10:30 PM Polaris should have been about 1° West from North. It looked to be directly in front of me so that would put it out by 2.5° East. If my street is aligned to true North then it looks like it would have been just 1° too far East. Checking on the Big Dipper, star SAO15384 (the East most star on the bottom) appeared to be too far East by 5 - 6°. I checked it 3 times over a period of an hour using a plum line to try to line the angle up. I don't completely trust my method but I was always consistently off to the East by about that much. I checked Venus at 10:50 PM when it was low on the horizon using the same method and my measurent was within half of degree from what the skychart said.

Steve Havas