By Thursday, Feb. 24 at 11:00am, please turn the problems below into Brian’s mailbox.
In this first problem, you will calculate where the Sun is relative to the rest of the stars on Thursday. To do this, use Ptolemy’s table in Appendix A of the book to get the Sun’s ecliptic longitude on Thursday, Feb. 24. Use that and the obliquity of the Ecliptic (ε=23.4°) to get the right ascension, α, and the declination, δ, of the Sun on Thursday, Feb. 24. Be careful with minus signs. Not only should you include them, but it is important to understand what they mean.
Imagine the Sun is at right ascension 8.421 hours and declination 19.22°. What day of the year is it? You have two ways of getting the answer. Use them both. They should agree.