Tag: lunar orbit

Astronomical Rock Art at Stoupe Brow, Fylingdales

first published 28 October 2016

I recently came across Rock Art and Ritual by Brian Smith and Alan Walker, (subtitled Interpreting the Prehistoric landscapes of the North York Moors. Stroud: History Press 2008. 38.). It tells the story: Following a wildfire of many square miles of the North Yorkshire Moors, thought ecologically devastating, those interested in its few decorated stones headed out to see how these antiquities had fared.

Background

Fire had revealed many more stones carrying rock art or in organised groups. An urgent archaeological effort would be required before the inevitable regrowth of vegetation.


Figure 1 Neolithic stone from Fylingdales Moor | Credit: Graham Lee, North York Moors National Park Authority.

A photo of one stone in particular attracted my attention, at a site called Stoupe Brow (a.k.a. Brow Moor) near Fylingdales, North Yorkshire.

Continue reading “Astronomical Rock Art at Stoupe Brow, Fylingdales”

Story of Three Similar Triangles

first published on 24 May 2012,

Figure 1 Robin Heath’s original set of three right angled triangles that exploited the 3:2 points to make intermediate hypotenuses so as to achieve numerically accurate time lengths in units of lunar or solar months and lunar orbits.

Interpreting Lochmariaquer in 2012, an early discovery was of a near-Pythagorean triangle with sides 18, 19 and 6. This year (2018) I found that triangle as between the start of the Erdevan Alignments near Carnac. But how did our work on cosmic N:N+1 triangles get started?

Robin Heath’s earliest work, A Key to Stonehenge (1993) placed his Lunation Triangle within a sequence of three right-angled triangles which could easily be constructed using one megalithic yard per lunar month. These would then have been useful in generating some key lengths proportional to the lunar year:  

  • the number of lunar months in the solar year,
  • the number of lunar orbits in the solar year and 
  • the length of the eclipse year in 30-day months. 

all in lunar months. These triangles are to be constructed using the number series 11, 12, 13, 14 so as to form N:N+1 triangles (see figure 1).

n.b. In the 1990s the primary geometry used to explore megalithic astronomy was N:N+1 triangles, where N could be non-integer, since the lunation triangle was just such whilst easily set out using the 12:13:5 Pythagorean triangle and forming the intermediate hypotenuse to the 3 point of the 5 side. In the 11:12 and 13:14 triangles, the short side is not equal to 5.

Continue reading “Story of Three Similar Triangles”

The Strange Design of Eclipses

We all know about solar eclipses but they are rarely seen, since the shadow of the moon (at one of its two orbital nodes) creates a cone of darkness which only covers a small part of the earth’s surface which travels from west to east, taking hours. For the megalithic to have pinned their knowledge of eclipses to solar eclipses, they would have instead studied the more commonly seen eclipse (again at a node), the lunar eclipse which occurs when the earth stands between the sun and the moon and the large shadow of the earth envelopes a large portion of the moon’s surface, as the moon passes through our planet’s shadow.

This phenomenon of eclipses is the result of many co-incidences:

Firstly, if the orbit of the moon ran along the ecliptic: there would be a solar eclipse and a lunar eclipse in each of its orbits, which are 27 and 1/3 days long.

Secondly, if the moon’s orbit was longer or shorter, the angular size of the sun would not be very similar. The moon’s orbit is not circular but elliptical so that, at different points in the lunar orbit the moon is larger, at other points smaller in angular size than the sun. This is most visible with solar eclipses where some are full or total eclipses, and others eclipse less than the whole solar disc, called annular eclipses.

Thirdly, the ecliptic shape of the moon’s orbit is deformed by gravitational forces such as the bulge of the earth, the sun and planets so that its major axis rotates. When the moon is furthest away (at apogee), its disc exceeds that of the sun. And when the moon is nearest to the earth (at perigee), its disc is smaller than that of the sun. This type of progression is called the precession of the lunar orbit where the major axis travels in the same direction as the sun and moon. This contrasts with the precession of the lunar nodes which also rotate (see later).

Continue reading “The Strange Design of Eclipses”

pdf: Synchronicity of Day and Year with the Lunar Orbit

This document was prepared by Richard Heath as a letter for Nature magazine and submitted on 14th April 1994 but remained unpublished. For readers of the Matrix of Creation (2nd ed, Inner Traditions Press, 2004) it marks the discovery of a unit of time proposed and named the Chronon, as being 1/10000th of the Moon’s orbit and also the difference between the sidereal and tropical day of the Earth. The paper also documents a discovery made, with Robin Heath, later to be documented in his books: that one can divide up the solar year by its excess over the eclipse year to reveal an 18.618:19.618 ratio between these years, and many other interesting numerical facts not mentioned in this place. The puzzle here is a connection between the rotation of the Earth, the solar year and the precession of the Moon’s orbit which (a) may be explainable by science (b) appears to have puzzled Megalithic astronomers and (c) should puzzle us today.

paper: Lunar Simulation at Le Manio

Our survey at Le Manio revealed a coherent arc of radial stones, at least five of which were equally long, equally separated and set to a radius of curvature that suggested a common centre. It appears the astronomers at Le Manio understood that, following three lunar sidereal orbits (after 82 days) the moon would appear again at the same point on the ecliptic at the same time of day

82: A Natural Accurate Pi related to Megalithic Yard

Author at Le Manio Quadrilateral (c. 4000 BC) in 2010. To left, the end of the southern-kerb’s day-inch count, which created the first megalithic yard of 261/8 (32.625) day-inches.

In my academia.edu paper on lunar simulators, based upon the surviving part of a circular structure at Le Manio (Carnac, Brittany), a very simple but poor approximation to PI could be assumed, of 82/26 (3.154) since there seem to have been 82 stones in the circle and the diameter was 26 of the inter-stone distance of 17 inches. The number 82 is significant to simulation of the moon’s orbit since that orbit is very nearly 27 and one third days long (actually 27.32166 days). In three orbits therefore, there are almost exactly 82 days and in day-inch counting that is 82 day-inches. Also of interest is the fact that in three orbits, the exact figure would be 81.965 day-inches which approaches the megalithic rod of 2.5 MY as 6.8 feet.

Continue reading “82: A Natural Accurate Pi related to Megalithic Yard”