FAQ/SouthernRotation
FAQ: Stars & the Southern Rotation
Why do stars rotate clockwise around Polaris and Counterclockwise and Clockwise around the South?
There was a lot of debate on the internet about this. It's extremely simple. So take a look at your car. When you witness a car drive forward from the outside, the driver side wheel always turns counterclockwise. The passenger side wheel always turns clockwise. The reverse is true if you are under the car. The same effect of rotations is true for a dome.
Look at the top of a lid and rotate it counter-clockwise. Now look at the rim. The rim appears to rotate clockwise! Everything goes from East to West in the sky. There also seems to be a huge debate in astrophotography that time-lapse videos of the "celestial south pole” is being faked. Some people claim they use special filters, dome cameras, wide angle, mislabeling shots of Northern Stars (or even simply CGI). Regardless, there is actually a lot of footage that conflicts with these time lapse instead showing the milky way and southern cross streaking across the sky in a slight curve and looks nothing like Polaris time lapse. The stars are said to have a 1 degree shortage in their rotation.
There was a brilliant video discussing this and the sidereal day. They showed pretty conclusively that the stars went east to west. There is other time lapse that shows stars moving streaking lines right besides spirals. In any case, it is completely possible to have this pattern (like a hurricane pattern in between the rotation with stars going above and below it). Like explained, the top of a dome will appear to rotate counterclockwise and the sides would appear to rotate clockwise. You can test this yourself by rotating a salad bowl. On the Azimuth map, Australia is on the opposite side to Africa and South America. So it is possible that there is a large spiral traced clockwise by the stars on each end.
However like previously stated many of these videos are in dispute. The distance of the stars would determine whether or not it would be easy to detect variations in the southern angle, after all, in the Azimuth map longitude lines are much large the further south you go. This plays a huge role in perspective of the stars. There are videos of crepuscular rays and anti-crepuscular rays which shows how the suns light angled up can rise in the horizon and the same theory has been applied to stars going across a dome pattern. When curving around a dome this can effect the way you see the stars. Also there have been other solutions and experiments proposed with rotating discs of projected light off a parabolic mirror however there are already many simple explanations.
“It has often been urged that the earth must be a globe, because the stars in the southern ‘hemisphere’ move round a south polar star; in the same way that those of the north revolve round the northern pole star. This is another instance of the sacrifice of truth, and denial of the evidence of our senses for the purpose of supporting a theory which is in every sense false and unnatural.
It is known to every observer that the north pole star is the center of a number of constellations which move over the earth in a circular direction. Those nearest to it, as the ‘Great Bear,’ etc. are always visible in England during their whole twenty-four hours' revolution. Those further away southwards rise north-north-east, and set south-south-west; still further south they rise east by north, and set west by north.
The farthest south visible from England, the rising is more to the east and south-east, and the setting to the west and south-west. But all the stars visible from London rise and set in a way which is not compatible with the doctrine of rotundity. For instance, if we stand with our backs to the north, on the high land known as ‘Arthur's Seat,’ near Edinburgh, and note the stars in the zenith of our position, and watch for several hours, the zenith stars will gradually recede to the north-west. If we do the same on Woodhouse Moor, near Leeds, or on any of the mountain tops in Yorkshire or Derbyshire, the same phenomenon is observed. The same thing may be seen from the top of Primrose Hill, near Regent's Park, London; from Hampstead Heath; or Shooter's Hill, near Woolwich.
If we remain all night, we shall observe the same stars rising towards our position from the north-east, showing that the path of all the stars between ourselves and the northern center move round the north pole-star as a common center of rotation; just as they must do over a plane such as the earth is proved to be.
It is undeniable that upon a globe zenith stars would rise, pass over head, and set in the plane of the observer's position. If now we carefully watch in the same way the zenith stars from the Rock of Gibraltar, the very same phenomenon is observed. The same is also the case from Cape of Good Hope, Sydney and Melbourne in Australia, in New Zealand, in Rio Janeiro, Monte Video, Valparaiso, and other places in the south. If then the zenith stars of all the places on the earth, where special observations have been made, rise from the morning horizon to the zenith of an observer, and descend to the evening horizon, not in a plane of the position of such observer, but in an arc of a circle concentric with the northern center, the earth is thereby proved to be a plane, and rotundity altogether disproved - shown, indeed, to be impossible.”
-Dr. Samuel Rowbotham, “Zetetic Astronomy, Earth Not a Globe!” (284-6)