The Hour angle- A second look!

• The Hour Angle, is the angle between an observer’s

meridian and the hour circle on which some
celestial body lies.

• Since the Hour angle represents the time it has

taken between when the celestial body (star or sun)
crossed the observer’s meridian to its current
meridian position, we can calculate it in time units.

• Noting that in 24 hours, the star would have made

360° by circling the pole, we then find that one hour
equals 15 degrees since 24h is 360°
• What is the HA when a star is on the observer’s
celestial meridian? (Ans: zero hours).

• The hour angle is used in measuring astronomical

time because the angle, when expressed in time
units, gives the time that has elapsed since the
celestial body’s last transit of the observer’s
meridian.
• The reference for measuring hour
angle is the observer’s meridian at
upper transit.
• By this convention, if the star is east,
then its hour angle is 24hrs –H but for
a west star, the hour angle is the
angle H.
• The position of each star is uniquely
specified when both the declination
and hour angles are given so this pair
constitutes a coordinate system for
celestial bodies.
• In this system, the fundamental
circle used for measurement is the
equator.
 Right Ascension
• Just as the Meridian that passed through Greenwich is
selected and used as a standard meridian for measuring
longitudes on earth, the 1st point of Aries (Vernal Equinox)
is used in place of Greenwich and the Meridian passing
through this point is then the standard astronomic
Meridian.
• The arc distance along the equator from this point to the
declination circle of the star is called the Right Ascension.
• Notice that this is just how longitude has been defined on
earth.
• Also the angle between this standard Meridian and the
observer’s meridian is called the Local Sidereal Time or
Sidereal Hour Angle SHA.
• In this case, the first point of Aries, γ is analogous
to Greenwich on earth.
• The angular distance between this meridian and the
hour circle through the star is measured along the
celestial equator to obtain a quantity called the
Right Ascension (RA).
• This is the same way longitude is measured on
earth so the right ascension is analogous to
longitude on earth.
• The Right Ascension is completely independent of
any observer position.
 The Right Ascension
• Technically speaking, the Right
Ascension is the angular distance of a
celestial star east of the vernal equinox.
• It is usually expressed in units of time
rather than degrees of arc.
• Right ascension and declination define
the position of a celestial object exactly
independent of any observer position.
• The hour angle shows the interval between when a star
crosses the observers meridian and its current meridian.
• If a star is used as the object observed for time
determination, the time so defined is called Sidereal time,
but if the sun is the object used, the time is called Solar
time.
• In this respect, the celestial meridian passing through the
vernal equinox can be considered to pass through a distant
star hence the hour angle of the vernal equinox would be
the Local Sidereal time.
• We may define three types of Hour Angles:
1. Sidereal Hour Angle-angle between observer’s meridian
and meridian passing through 1st point of Aries. We may
also call this the Local Sidereal Time (LST).
2. Greenwich Hour Angle (GHA) -angle between
observer’s meridian and Greenwich Meridian.

3. The Local Hour Angle- angle between observer’s

Meridian and Meridian through sun.
 Relation of Hour Angle with the Right Ascension

• It can be seen readily from above that, the Local Sidereal

Hour angle is equal to the sum of the Right Ascension α
and the hour angle (HA) of an object.
• This is also referred to as the Sidereal Time.

 
Q1. To what position on Earth is the vernal equinox
analogous?
Q2. What is the Value of the Hour angle of the first point of
Aries in terms of the Hour angle of the star and the right
Ascension?
 Time and Time Measurements
• Time is the interval between the occurrence of two events.
• Time is used to sequence events, to compare the durations of
events, and to quantify rates of change of motions of objects.
• Time keeping and the construction of calendars are among the
earliest functions of the astronomer.
• All natural time units are caused by astronomical phenomena.
– The year by Earth's orbit around the Sun which also results in the
seasons.
– The month by the Moon's movement around the Earth.
– The day by the rotation of earth about its axis.
• A time unit is the interval between the occurrences of any event
occurring with regularity.
• Therefore, motions such as the earth rotation as apparently seen
as the motion of the sun (risings or settings motion can provide
a method of measuring time.
• A time measure assigns a unique number to either an epoch,
which specifies the moment when an instantaneous event
occurs, or a time interval, which is the duration of a continued
event.
• The Earth’s rotation on its axis is an example of one motion
which occurs with regularity and causes the Sun and other
celestial bodies to appear to move across the sky from east to
west each day.
• If a person located on the Earth’s equator were to measure the
time interval between two successive transits overhead of a
very distant star, he would actually be measuring the period of
the Earth’s rotation.
• This period or interval constitutes a unit of time called a
sidereal day.
 Measurement of Time and Time Scales
• If however, he made a similar measurement of the Sun,
the resulting time is called a Solar day.
• The solar day is about 4 minutes longer than the sidereal
day.
• The interval between successive risings or successive
settings of the sun, is regular and allows us to measure a
unit of time called the TROPICAL DAY.
• Similarly, a synodic month is the time from one new Moon
to another new Moon.
• The year is the time it takes for the sun to complete one
circle along the ecliptic (that is the time it takes the earth to
orbit the Sun).
The day as a Time unit.
• The day may be defined as the interval between successive
upper (or lower) transits of a celestial body across the
observer’s meridian or across another chosen standard
accepted meridian.
 Sidereal Days and Solar Days
• If the celestial body used to define the day is a star, the day so defined
is called the sidereal day.
• If the celestial body is the sun, the day so defined is called the solar
day.
• If the celestial body is the moon, the day is called the lunar day.
• The day, as defined by the sun is not constant but has variable lengths
since the motion of the earth round the sun is not at constant speed.
• For the sidereal day however, these effects are negligible and so the
sidereal day may be regarded as of constant length.
• Recall that, the motion of the sun as we observe it is apparent so the
time as observed with the sun is Apparent Time (AT).
• The average time taken for the sun between two transits of a chosen
reference meridian is 24 hours.
• Sidereal time is time measured with respect to the apparent motion of a
'fixed' stars in the sky due to the Earth's rotation.
• From our perspective, a given star will rise or set about four minutes
earlier each day than the sun.
• In other words, from our perspective, the stars revolve around the
Earth in 23 hours and 56 minutes which is the period of a sidereal day.
• The duration of a sidereal day in units of Universal Time
is 23h 56m 04.0905s.
• To establish a zero-point for the counting of sidereal
time, the vernal equinox is used.
• The Hour angle formed by the Hour circle passing
through this point with respect to the observers meridian
or any other referenced meridian such as Greenwich
Meridian is called the Sidereal Time.
• If the observers Meridian is used, the sidereal time so formed is
called the local sidereal time.
• If the Greenwich meridian is used, the sidereal time so formed is
called the Greenwich Sidereal time.
• The Local solar time at any instance and location is defined as
the Local Hour Angle. (LHA).
• Similarly, the Sidereal time, at any moment and at a given
locality is defined by the hour angle of the vernal equinox at that
locality called the LST.
• From figure 5.3 below, the LHA of a star = LST - RA of the star.
Figure 5.3: LST,LHA, and RA
 Solar Time
• For purposes of everyday time keeping on the earth, the sun is used.
• Solar times are measured using the apparent position of the Sun on
the celestial sphere resulting in hour angles expressed in time units.
• If the Greenwich Meridian is the reference meridian for solar time
then, the longitude of the observer converted to time units is a measure
of time.
• True solar times are not constant times but vary with the position of
sun in ecliptic.
• The variation is a consequence both of the eccentricity of the Earth's
orbit and the obliquity of the ecliptic (the tilt of Earth's rotation axis).
• Firstly, the Earth moves at different speeds in different
parts of its elliptical orbit, according to Kepler's second
law, hence the Sun seems to move at different speeds
among the stars.
• Secondly, even with a perfectly circular Earth orbit, the
Sun would move evenly along the ecliptic but its
projection onto the celestial equator would result in
varying speeds.
• To obtain a more even time scale, we define a fictitious
“Mean Sun”.
• This Mean Sun takes the same time from one
vernal equinox to the next as the true Sun, but
moves with constant velocity along the celestial
equator.
• The Mean Solar Time is therefore the hour angle of
the mean Sun.
• The difference between True and Mean Solar Time
is called the Equation of time.
 Apparent and mean solar days.
• As stated earlier, the length of a solar day varies throughout the year due to
the following two reasons:
• First, Earth's orbit is an ellipse, not a circle, so the Earth moves faster when
it is nearest the Sun (perihelion) and slower when it is farthest from the Sun
(aphelion).
• Secondly, due to Earth's axial tilt , when the Sun crosses the equator at
both equinoxes, it will be moving at an angle to the equator, so the
projection of this tilted motion onto the equator will result in speeds either
faster or slower than its actual motion.
• Owing to the variable length of the day as shown by the true sun, time
cannot be recorded by a clock having a constant rate if the true sun is used.
• Then the mean solar day is the interval between
two successive upper transits of the mean sun.
• Mean solar time conceptually is the hour angle of
the fictitious mean Sun and this is the day to
which ordinary clocks and watches are regulated.
• The time interval between successive transits of
the real sun is called The Apparent Solar Day,
whereas that between successive transits of the
mean sun is called the Mean Solar Day.
• If the apparent time is AT and the mean time is MT, then  =
AT – MT.
• This difference can be positive or negative since the positions
of the actual sun varies with respect to the mean sun throughout
the year.
• In order to avoid the use of negative values in the tabulated
values of , a new value E is defined and tabulated by E =  +
12hr.
• Therefore, we can write the equation of time as E = AT – MT +
12h.
 Universal Time (UT), Greenwich Mean Time
• For universal time measurement, instead of measuring the time
from the observer’s meridian, the Greenwich meridian at lower
transit is used as the universal time line.
• This is convenient so that the day will commence at midnight
when the sun is at lower transit, and the sun will be at upper
transit at noon.
• The mean time (that is time measured by the mean sun)
measured from the lower transit on Greenwich meridian is
called the GMT.
• GMT also known as universal time (UT) is based on a “mean
sun”, fictitious sun that circles the earth along celestial equator
at constant rate, in exactly 24 hours or 15º / hour.
• Universal Time (UT) was introduced in the year 1926 to
replace the Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) but for most
practical purposes, UT is equivalent to the Mean Solar Time
for the Greenwich reference meridian.
• UT is basically, however, not a solar time in the sense that it is
not defined using observed solar positions but it is derived
from the more precise sidereal Time.
 Time Zones and Zone Time
• We can see that, Greenwich Apparent Time (GAT) is the time at
Greenwich as measured from apparent sun and Local time is time at
specific Longitude positions and is different at every other Longitude.
• Local time is determined from Greenwich time by adding or
subtracting the Longitude value converted to time units.
• The establishment of time zones accounts for the fact that for any
given instance as the Sun is rising at one place on the Earth, at another
place it is high noon, and is setting at a third place.
• A time zone is a region of a common civil timescale.
• Time zones are obtained by dividing the earth into 24 time zones so
that each zones time is separated by an hour.
• Each zone is 15º of longitude wide.
• Zones are identified by number of times longitude of its zone meridian
can be divided by 15 and this is known as the Zone Description (ZD)
with prefix “+” for west longitudes or “-” for east longitudes.
• The local time of a time zone usually differs by an integer number of
hours from Universal Time.
• The difference “local time” minus “Universal Time” is positive for
time zones east of Greenwich and negative for western time zones.
• Zone description (ZD) is added algebraically to local time to get GMT
• When working with time zone problems, first convert local time to
GMT and then if required convert time to new zone.
• For example, if ZD is (+5), and ZT is 0100 then GMT is 0100 + (+5)
= 0600
• When converting from GMT, the sign must be reversed. For example,
if GMT is 1200, and the desired ZD is (+3), then ZT = 1200 - (+3) =
0900.
• If GMT is 1200, and the desired ZD is (-3), then ZT = 1200 - (-3) =
1500.
•  
 Daylight saving time
• In some jurisdictions there is a legislation to advance
time by one hour in summer for Daylight Saving Time
(DST).
• Some jurisdictions have DST greater than 2 hours.

• Note also that when crossing 180 º meridians from W to

E, date advances 1 day and from E to W, date decreases
1 day. 
 Julian Day Numbers
• The Julian day number or simply the Julian day is a continuous count
of days, starting with the day 0 that began on the 1st of January, 4713
BC at 12 o'clock noon.
• In most astronomic calculation for natural events, Julian day numbers
are employed because they allow compact unambiguous time
specifications and the easy computation of time differences, periods
etc.
• The Julian day number was introduced in 1581 by the French scholar
Joseph Justus Scaliger to define a non-ambiguous time reckoning
without negative year numbers.
Time Diagrams
• Time diagrams assist in visualizing relationships involving time.
• The concept for astronomic time measurement as we have seen above
is provided by the apparent motion of stars round the pole.
• This means that if the observer were at the celestial pole looking
down on the plane of the equator, the celestial equator and the earth’s
equator would form two concentric circles.
• For such a polar projection, the meridians will be radiating straight
lines from the centre.
. Diagram showing local Hour angle
. Time Diagram showing Observers Meridian(M) , Hour circle for the sun, and Greenwich Meridian G
• We may define the GHA of the Sun as the angle between the
Greenwich Meridian and the Sun and the longitude of the Observer as
the angle between the Greenwich Meridian and the observers
meridian.
• Notice from the diagram that LHA of the sun is measured from
observers meridian at upper transit.
• Again from diagram, it is readily deduced that:
• LHA=GHA-λ w when longitude is west;
• LHA=GHA+λ E when longitude is in the east.
• If the first point of Aries is used, change LHA to LST and GHA to
GST