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Post by indigojones on Jul 15, 2020 13:20:54 GMT -5
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Post by zaphod73491 on Jul 15, 2020 13:44:30 GMT -5
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Post by indigojones on Jul 15, 2020 15:15:29 GMT -5
That is a very sweeping statement you make there zaphod. May I just add that the cover orientation of 'Triangulum' is exactly the same as the night I spotted it when at the cistern in Adelaide in late September 2019.
May I suggest that you enlarge your constellation you sent me and measure the internal angles of it. I think you will find the narrow angle is 17 degrees. Then pinpoint the centers of the main stars on the book cover being precise I think you will find they are very much the same to some small degree. You should end up with 180 degrees should you not.
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Post by zaphod73491 on Jul 15, 2020 18:21:15 GMT -5
That is a very sweeping statement you make there zaphod. May I just add that the cover orientation of 'Triangulum' is exactly the same as the night I spotted it when at the cistern in Adelaide in late September 2019. May I suggest that you enlarge your constellation you sent me and measure the internal angles of it. I think you will find the narrow angle is 17 degrees. Then pinpoint the centers of the main stars on the book cover being precise I think you will find they are very much the same to some small degree. You should end up with 180 degrees should you not. Okay, I think I see what you've done now. You are only using 3 stars out of the dozens on the cover, but at least you are using the three "brightest" ones that are mostly on the cover (one of which bends around the spine of the book). I am an amateur astronomer, so when someone claims that a star pattern matches a particular constellation, being quite familiar with Triangulum I was looking for the *full* constellation. Delta- and epsilon-Triangulum are absent, and the two smaller pentagram-shaped stars on the cover do not align with other stars in Triangulum.
So you are making an association between alpha, beta and gamma Triangulum, and the Fenn-hooked star, largest star, and spine star, respectively. The triangles are reasonably close: they are each nearly isosceles triangles with vertex angles of about 16 degrees (the book) and just over 17 degrees (Triangulum). I think it would have strengthened your hypothesis a lot if the fourth largest star on the cover had been utilized, given that it is the closest star to the center of the book. Altnernatively, the second brightest star on the whole cover is on the inside flap.
The trouble with using only a 3-star match is that there are hundreds of such triangles formed in the night sky. Two of which that immediately come to mind are the "feet" of Ursa Major: theta, iota ("Talitha") and kappa form one such isosceles triangle, and psi, mu (Tanya Australis) and lambda (Tania Borealis) form another. It would be much more convincing if you could find a quadrateral star arrangement that mirrors that of the four brightest stars on the book cover, or all six if you open the flap. (Unfortunately, I'm not aware of a bright, matching asterism in the night sky -- I certainly checked when the book came out.)
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