Said LeGrande:
Then answer my simple little question. When you look at the sun is it exactly where it appears to be or is its actual position 2.1 degrees more advanced than it appears?
Hey, I asked first! but hey if you'll answer my question if I answer yours then I'll answer yours first.
Please go read
this to learn all about it. At any instant for an observer on the earth, he sun will appear about 0.0056 degrees (20 arcseconds) ahead of its actual angular position due to the observer's transverse velocity of about 67K miles per hour (most of which is due to the earth's orbital path around the sun, although the earth's surface speed at the equator is about 1k mph as well.)
So the answer is "Not 2.1 degrees lagged and not zero degrees - but the angular position of the sun is about 20 arcseconds advanced, due to Stellar Aberration."
(And by "advanced" I mean advanced with reference to the direction of the observer's transverse velocity.)
Now - I answered your question - so please answer mine:
If a reasonably stationary and bright heavenly body were 12 light hours away and over the earth's equator, for an observer on earth at any given instant in time, when this planet appeared on the east horizon would it really be on the west horizon? Would it's gravity really pull one way while it's light appeared to come from the exact opposite direction? Do you
really believe that?
Once you understand the basics I will be happy to get into the more complicated stuff : )
Yeah yeah, you can't even answer a simple question about apparent angular displacement of a heavenly body that's 12 light hours away because you know that no matter what you answer it'll be in clear contradiction to either your previous statements (making you less then honest) or it'll be in clear contradiction of reality (making you less then, hmm, I'll have to think about that one...)
You've refused to answer this question for so long now that it's almost funny. You know that if your claimed 2.1 degrees is real, then a lot of other things are real that we all know is absurd. (Like, for example, you claim that (at any given instant for an observer on earth) the sun appears about 2.1 degrees behind where it actually is due to the fact that the earth rotates 2.1 degrees in the time it takes the sun's light to reach the earth. You're wrong, however, because even though the light from the sun may be 8.3 minutes old when it reaches earth, but since the sun is where it was at the time, the light will be coming from the same place that the sun is because the sun is still where it was 8.3 minutes ago.)
If your claim is true, then obviously if the sun were 12 light hours away instead of 8.3 light minutes, then the sun would appear to be rising in the east while it was really setting in the west - which sounds absurd!
So how about it? I answered yours. Be a grown-up and answer mine!
Thanks!
-Jesse
Fine print: I am well aware that there are other slight sources of apparent angular displacement with the sun. One is that the sun wobbles a little bit. But this and all of the other causes of apparent angular displacement are nothing compared to the 20 arcseconds of Stellar Aberration, and 20 arcseconds is nothing compared to 2.1 degrees.