Stars visible on the first morning of the Battle of the Somme

[haradwen]

What stars would have been visible on the eastern horizon from the Allied lines just before dawn on 1 July 1916? (Once you got above the ground mist.) I think it's Taurus and its neighbours. The proofreader has queried this

Comments

[tethys89]

I think Stellarium always gives you the time as it would be at your computer's location, not where you're looking at the stars for, so if you're somewhere like Australia you are going to get very odd times for sunrise/sunset in Europe (currently Stellarium is telling me sunset would be about 10am in Perth in July, which seems unlikely unless it's using my local time for it :-p).

Taurus would have risen just before the sun, but given how close to the sun it would be, it would be almost impossible to see amidst the sunrise glow (it's in the same place as Mercury, and all the stars in it are fainter than Mercury - and I don't know if you've ever tried to spot Mercury, but it's pretty tricky unless you know exactly where to look)

This is what stellarium gives me at Amiens for just before 4am (I think that's GMT+1, so I think really 5am for 1/7/1916 in Amiens), with and without the atmosphere effect - imgur . com/a/Yjvpv (remove the spaces to get it to work). Although Amiens isn't exactly the right place, the relative positions of stars/constellations will be the same, and the time shouldn't be out by much.

I think Mars is below the horizon, but Jupiter would be very visible. Pisces, Perseus, or Camelopardalis are much more believable to me as visible constellations than Taurus would be.

[haradwen]

if you're somewhere like Australia

spot-on...

Thank-you so much for making that image - it's very clear what the problem would be, especially with a ground-mist. I went outside just before sunrise this morning, and yes, by the time Taurus had risen he'd be more or less invisible. I think I could get away with Mars on the horizon, an hour or so earlier - but Taurus wouldn't have risen by then. So I'm going for Pegasus, higher up - unmistakeable and highly appropriate for my POV pilot!