1. My list of stars with right ascension hours and minutes converted to right ascension days cannot be used to find exactly where in the year a given star was rising together with Sun at the precessional time of the rongorongo texts, because the orbit of Earth around Sun is not a circle but an ellips. Therefore the apparent movement of Sun against the star roof is quicker when Earth is close to Sun than relatively far away from Sun. This effect explains why summer is longer north of the equator - the aphelion is in July. ... July 4 is the 185th day of the year (186th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 180 days remaining until the end of the year. The Aphelion, the point in the year when the Earth is farthest from the Sun, occurs around this date ... However, a list of right ascension days can be helpful when solving the problem, given that it is used in combination with a solar type of calendar. A good such calendar ought to reflect the fact that the quarters of the year have different lengths. In the Gregorian calendar the lengths of the quarters are 90, 91, 92, respectively 92 days:
If summer is defined from the equinoxes there will be 185 days in the northern summer and 180 in the southern summer:
From winter solstice to summer solstice north of the equator there are (365 - 355) + 172 = 182 days. From summer solstice to winter solstice there are 355 - 172 = 183 days. I have redmarked positions which I think were regarded as the correct places in the calendar for the cardinal points (equinoxes and solstices), although in fact they are not quite stable. Moreover, other factors than direct observations were used to determine which days in the month were considered as the proper days for the equinoxes and the solstices: ... Ecclesiastically, the equinox is reckoned to be on 21 March (even though the equinox occurs, astronomically speaking, on 20 March in most years) ... |