Introductory Astronomy: Motions of the Stars

Video lecture that explains the apparent motion of stars in the sky using the celestial sphere model and horizon diagrams. Refers to tutorial 2 ("Motion") from "Lecture Tutorials for Introductory Astronomy".

Video is intended for students taking astronomy at Westchester Community College. The video is unpolished, except for some audio tweaking.

Star trail photographs are from Wikimedia Commons.

Simulation of the celestial sphere is from Kevin Lee's Astronomy Education page at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln:

"Lecture Tutorials for Introductory Astronomy" by Prather, et al published by Pearson Higher Ed:

The video features Stellarium, a sky simulator that is free on multiple operating systems:

[JosephReference]

thank you, this makes more sense than a book explaining celestial sphere models.

[aaronmayhew]

How come the north star never moves but the earth supposedly has a woble? The sun moves very far north in summer and far south for the winter. I don't get it.

[roguecow]

Excellent tutorial. Got what I needed.

[michalhavlicek]

this was extremely helpful, thank you so much

[Retiredcrypto]

is it wierd that big dipper is bigger now (january) than it usually is during july and august? how does that work?

[alexstevensen]

So I gather the zodiac (or the path of the sun through the year) is not aligned with the celestial equator one half is more northern and the other half more southern.

[dominikmoznik]

Great video man, you really helped me, thanks a lot:)

[longstory]

thank you for introduce awesome website!

[alexstevensen]

Interesting thing these celestial movements. Question, does the sun always 'hit' the horizon at the same angle during winter, spring, summer? when at say 45 degree lattitude.