LoveScience

Star visibility
« on: November 18, 2018, 01:22:22 AM »
The stars visible from a given location on earth vary with time and location. On any night I can see Polaris at an angle of 51 degrees above the horizon since my latitude is 51N.

An observer located at 51S will never see Polaris as it is below their horizon.

How does that work on s flat Earth?  On a flat Earth standing at the north pole you would be standing at the centre of the disc and Polaris would be directly overhead.

Moving away from the centre, Polaris would move away from the overhead point which is exactly what we see. However on a flat Earth Polaris would never reach the horizon and so would be always visible to all obervers on Earth. That is not the case.

On a particular night at a particular time an observer at the north pole will see a completely different pattern of stars compared to an observer at the south pole. Easy to explain if the two observers were located on opposite points on a spherical Earth.