Venus observations by the Maya

[RONNIEBOY]

Last evening I was searching for the Maya Venus calendar.
I know there is some information in the Dresden Codex, observations dealing Venus.
Venus does have a cycle of 584 days. Venus is sometimes "evening star" and sometimes "morning star".
Mine first question: Can someone explain that to me? (Not to difficult)

Venus and the star Regulus did have the same position in the sky once in the eight years (before 1100 AD).
The next question, can someone tell me the position of Venus in the year 2012, and is there maybe another star at that time (20 dec 2012), having the same position in the sky as Venus?

[Tinaa]

Moved to Astronomy

[Tog]

Last evening I was searching for the Maya Venus calendar.
I know there is some information in the Dresden Codex, observations dealing Venus.
Venus does have a cycle of 584 days. Venus is sometimes "evening star" and sometimes "morning star".
Mine first question: Can someone explain that to me? (Not to difficult)

Venus and the star Regulus did have the same position in the sky once in the eight years (before 1100 AD).
The next question, can someone tell me the position of Venus in the year 2012, and is there maybe another star at that time (20 dec 2012), having the same position in the sky as Venus?

The first part:

Venus is closer to the Sun than the Earth. Because of this, there is a limit to how from the Sun it can appear in our sky. This limit is about 46 degrees if I recall. At one oint in it's orbit, it will rise before the Sun, making it the "Morning Star". Later, it wil move around the Sun to a point where it sets after the Sun, making it the "Evening Star".

Part 2: Venus will be near the three stars to the upper right of Antares, on Dec 20, 2012. It will actually be very close to the upper of the three, and framed nicely in a group of fairly bright stars. Could make a nice picture for the early risers.

Part ?: The warning flag popped when the terms Mayan Calendar and Dec 20, 2012 were used together. No, the world will not be ending then. The Mayans didn't think so either. Their calendar is similar to the odometer on a car. WHen your car has 099,999 km on it, the next milel rolls it over to 100,000. When it has 999,999 km on it, the next mile rolls it over to 000,000. What isn't shown is that 7th wheel that would really make it 1,000,000. The Mayan calendar has several more wheels to go that are all 0, and have never been turned.

[Jens]

The impression I get from reading the Wikipedia entry on the Mayan calendar:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayan_calendar

is that they did seem to believe in supernatural events and stuff like that happening at the ends of cycles. Though to be honest, I'm not an expert at all about this and, well, though Wikipedia is often a good source of information, it's not infallible.

And actually, I would be surprised if they hadn't believed things like that. I don't think it's that unusual cross-culturally. Many Christians were, IIRC, fearing that the world would end in 1000 AD, and actually in 2000 AD as well.

[RONNIEBOY]

I understand the long count. I know the wheel goes on and on....
Todays long count = 12.19.13.12.15 (local date)
Thanks for explaining the fact of morning and evening "star".
Greetings from Ede(NL)

[TriangleMan]

Last evening I was searching for the Maya Venus calendar.
I know there is some information in the Dresden Codex, observations dealing Venus.

Here is a detailed analysis of the astronomical data in the Dresden Codex. Apparantly the observations were not exact, small errors occured that would result in the calendar being off after a few centuries.