OBSERVED SPEED OF VENUS

Point 2 = 04/29/04 Point 9 = 05/15/04 Time (t) = 17 days

Velocity (V) = Distance = Degrees

Time Day

(Observed Speed Venus 5˚ 50’/17 days )

+ (Motions of Earth per day ~ 1˚ /day)

(VENUS) Arc Minutes = 5 x 60’=300 + 50’ = 350’/17 days = 20.6’/day= 20’36”/day

(EARTH) Arc Minutes = 1 x 60’ = 60’/day

(V) Total Arc Minutes = 80’36’’/day = 3.4’/hr = (V)= 3’24”/hr

 CALCULATED TIME TO TRANSIT SOLAR DIAMETER

TRANSIT Time (T) = SOLAR Distance (D)

VENUS Velocity (V)

Distance = (D) = ½˚ = 30’

Velocity = (V) = 3’24”/hr

(T) = 30’ = 8.82 hrs = 08:49:12 (FULL SOLAR DIAMETER)

3’24”/hr

PROJECTED 2004 TRANSIT = 2/3 SOLAR DIAMETER

2004 Transit = .66 x 8.82 hrs = 5.82 = 05:49:12

Ancient Mayan Naked Eye Astronomy: How do we predict the speed and motions of Venus?Breanne Gagne, TESC Box 60143. Astronomy & Cosmologies, Spring 2004. The Evergreen State College, Olympia, WA 98505.

SummaryNaked eye astronomy can produce very fruitful results. By plotting Venus against the background stars, and calculating its speed, I was able to predict the time that Venus will spend in transit across the Solar disk. In order to fully understand the importance of Venus to the Ancient Mayans, I attempted to witness their most important celestial event through their eyes. Many of their mythological stories about Venus are symbolic of Venus’s movements and appearances at certain times or brilliancy. The Mayans intensely worshipped the heavens and associated astronomical events with their own lives and affairs. “A principal of cosmic harmony pervaded all of existence in Mesoamerican thought.” (Aveni 1980, 320) For this reason, I chose to study the connection between Venus and the Mayans.

AcknowledgementsI wish to thank Don Noe for all of his hours of help, Julie Almeter for assistance with writing, Freya Goetz for help with studying, April Noble for being supportive, Anthony Aveni for the bountiful information, E.J. Zita for all of her assistance and guidance, Lorna Porter and the Evergreen State College Library, the CAL staff and Scientific Computing at Evergreen, and Labstores, for use of the Orion telescope.

References Figure 2.1 http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/transit/venus

Figure 3.1–3.7 Venus Revealed, David Harry Grinspoon, 1997.

Figure 4.1 Stairways to the Stars, Anthony Aveni, 1997.

June 8, 2004 Venus in Transit, Eli Maor, 2000.

Skywatchers of Ancient Mexico, Anthony Aveni, 1980.

The Cosmos of the Yucatec Maya, Merideth Paxton, 2001.

Sky and Telescope Magazine, May-June 2004.

Figure 2.1 NASA Fred Espanak

CalculationsFrom my naked eye observations, I can find Venus’s speed to

predict the amount of time that it will spend in transit June 8, 2004

Elnath

Motions of Venus

Venus’s 5 Evening appearances for 8 years. Morning appearances are

nearly mirror images of these on the Eastern horizon. The cycle repeats

perfectly every 8 years.

Figures 3.2-3.7 Mark Bullock and Carter Emmart

The orbits of Venus and EarthFigure 3.1 Carter Emmart

Venus Transit•Venus must be at inferior conjunction

•Venus’s orbit is faster than Earth, it will pass in front of the sun from EAST to WEST.

•Venus will appear in silhouette crossing the sun as a black disk 1/32 as wide as the Sun.

584 days for Earth and Venus to line up with respect to Sun.

At inferior conjunction Venus is in the glare of the sun, invisible for 8 days.

First morning visibility is called “heliacal rising,” the beginning of the cycle.

263 days as “morning star,” moving to superior conjunction.

50 days hidden in the glare of the Sun, on the opposite side from the Earth.

263 days descending toward the sun as “evening star,” where it becomes invisible again.

Venus’s actual orbital period is 224 days; the motions of Earth (365 days) make it appear longer.

Path of Venus across Sun’s disk on June 8, 2004 and June 6, 2012. Total predicted time is 06:07:00 :07 min.

My own prediction is just shy of the NASA prediction.

Approx. Angular Separation = 5˚ 50’

30’

D

20’

2/3 D

1˚ = 60’ (arc minutes)

1’ = 60” (arc seconds)

Mayan Venus CosmologyAncient Mayans worshipped and tracked Venus’s movements for hundreds of years.

The named it “great star,” “red star,” “bright star,” and “wasp” corresponding its cyclic rhythm of 4 appearances over a 584 day cycle.

Five 548 day periods correspond to 2920 days, which is also 8 Solar (365 day) years, and 99 lunar months. It takes 2922 days for the Sun, Earth, Venus and Stars to all agree from a defined point.

This number is very important in cyclic time, and the Mayans were fully aware of this alignment.

These movements were recoded in the Venus tables of one of their 4 surviving books, the Dresden Codex; 5 distinct patterns in 8 Solar years.

Dividing Venus’s yearly motions into 4 distinct unequal parts (see Venus table at left), the intervals that the Mayans recorded are off from their true values.

It has been asserted that this was for religious and ritual reasons.

Vast importance was given to Venus at the “rebirth” or heliacal rising, the first appearance of the planet in the east as a morning star after its 8 day disappearance.

This is the beginning of its cycle.

According to Anthony Aveni, a leading Mesoamerican archaeoastronomer, the observations of the Venus tables were taken at the tower of El Caracol, a monument dedicated to the Venus deity

Quetzalcoatl-Kukulcan at Chitzen Itza.

Hieroglyphs on astronomically aligned buildings indicate that a pair of notched sticks, and vertical markers on the horizon were used to record positions and determine cycle lengths.

El Caracol is aligned 10-12 degrees off of North, South, East, West, and the window slots align to the extremes of Venus’s celestial path.

http://home.catv.ne.jp/nn/yamagami/2003CANCUN4.files/caracol.jpg

Translation of a portion of the first page of the Venus Table of the Dresden Codex showing the divisions of time over a single 584-day cycle.

Figure 4.1 Anthony Aveni

El Caracol at Chitzen Itza’

ObservationsI recorded these observations in the19 days between April 28, 2004 and May 16, 2004 from the

northwest corner of the Library Building on the Evergreen campus.

MethodEach day my observations and orientation in the sky became increasingly accurate. I learned what I was

looking at, and at the same time researched Venus's motions. I tracked Venus in comparison to the bright star in Taurus, Elnath. For my calculations, I have thrown out the data from my first and last

days for a total of 17 days. I found a 5˚50’ change in position. Taking into account the motions of the Earth, 360˚ in 365 days, for a movement of 1˚/day, I calculated the observed speed of Venus. Using this

speed I calculated, the amount of time that it will spend in transit across 2/3 of solar disk this June 8, 2004.

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