At what two celestial locations do the celestial equator and eliptic coincide?

Answer 1

They're both imaginary, and they're parallel.

How to explain their relationship . . .

Imagine the earth's equator ... the circular line drawn around the earth's fat middle, exactly half-way
between the North and South Poles. Now imagine that the equator starts to get bigger. It's still lined up
with the same line on the earth, but its diameter is growing, and it loses contact with the surface, and keeps
growing, until it's over everybody's head. Now ships are sailing under it on their way north or south, and
it still keeps growing, like an enormous hula hoop (does anybody still know what those are?).
After a few hours, the equator gets so big that we can't really tell any more that it's only a few hundred miles
out there. Now it looks like it's a line on the solid surface of the sky ... the same surface that the sun, moon,
and stars are all painted on. Everything drawn on that surface looks like it's the same distance above the
earth ... the surface looks like the inside of a big globe. And it has that new line all the way around it, exactly
above the earth's equator at every point, but up in the sky. That's the celestial equator.

Another way to visualize the celestial equator ... maybe not a lot better than the first way, but here it is anyway:

Picture a gigantic knife, big enough to come along and cut the whole earth in half.

If it's big enough and comes in exactly right, it can cut the earth exactly on the equator, so you separate the bottom
half from the top half. Those are the north and south "hemispheres". Now, each half of the earth can sit flat on a table,
and the outside of the circle that it makes on the table is the line that used to be the equator.

OK ? Good.

Now if you will, picture an even BIGGER knife, one that makes the first one look like a boy scout's pocket knife.
This one is truly ginormous, almost too big to imagine. It can slice stars, solar systems, galaxies ! We're going to
slice the earth in half again with this one, and it has to be a clean cut. So we back way off almost to infinity, and
carefully line up our shot, so that we won't have to make any adjustments on the way in. When we're perfectly
lined up, we make our move. We keep our knife flat, come in smooth and steady from infinity, hit the equator
exactly, and slice precisely between the hemispheres. Then we follow through, and keep going off to infinity
on the other side, holding the knife flat all the way.

We have not only cut the earth in half exactly along the equator. This time we have also cut the whole
celestial sphere in half, on a line exactly parallel to the earth's equator. That line is (was) the celestial equator.

Answer 2

The celestial equator and the ecliptic coincide at the vernal equinox and the autumnal equinox. These points are where the Sun crosses the celestial equator, marking the beginning of spring and autumn, respectively.

Answer 3

The celestial sphere is the sky. It is a term used to describe the sky visible from horizon to horizon of an observer at any given latitude. The sky appears like an inverted bowl above us, stretching 180 degrees in all directions. What we can see at night on this sphere depends on our latitude and the time of year in which we are looking.

Answer 4

The two points where the where the celestial equator cross the ecliptic are called the vernal (or spring) and autumnal equinox. This is in relationship to the northern hemisphere but the names are retained in the Southern Hemisphere. The vernal equinox occurs around March 20 or 21st and the autumnal equinox occurs around September 22 or 23. These are the times the sun passes through these points on its way north or south. There is a variation because there are about 365 1/4 days in a year so the calendar must be adjusted by a full day once every four years (leap year). This leads to a change in time from year to year of a quarter of a day which is brought back into line by the extra day in the leap year. There is a further adjustment as the equinox varies by one day each century, another by a day in 400 years and another by a day every 4000 years. Our current calendar is designed to keep the vernal equinox on March 21st.

Answer 5

The ecliptic is the path of the Sun through the sky as viewed from the centre of Earth (nb this is a minor simplification), which is coplanar (exists on the same geometric plane) as the orbit of the Earth around the Sun.

The celestial equator is the imaginary projection of the Earth's equator into space.

Because the Earth rotates around its own axis (which defines the equator and therefore the celestial equator) at a tilt of approximately 23 degrees relative to the orbital plane (i.e. the ecliptic), the celestial equator and ecliptic only intersect at two points on the Earth's orbit.

At these two points, the Earth is tilted neither away from nor towards the Sun. They are called the vernal and autumnal equinoxes.

Answer 6

The celestial equator is the imaginary projection of Earth's own equator out through space onto the "sphere" of the night sky. Its use helps us orient ourselves to celestial objects.

Answer 7

an imaginary line circling the heavens midway between the celestial poles

Answer 8

Yes, exactly.

Yes, exactly.

Yes, exactly.

Yes, exactly.

Answer 9

They are the line and points, respectively, in the sky that are always

directly over the corresponding line and points on the Earth.

Answer 10

When you stand on the equator, the Celestial Equator joins the horizon due east of you and

the horizon due west of you, passing through the point directly overhead (your zenith).