When Is Fomalhaut Visible from New Orleans Louisiana?
Question:
I’m a writer and I’m trying to use the Lovecraftian Horror mythos in my writing, and one of the elements that is the most important for one of my stories is a certain ritual that can only be performed under the star Fomalhaut, which, through research, I found out is an actual star. For accuracy’s sake, in general, how often is Fomalhaut visible from Earth? Let’s say I’m in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Answer:
In fact, Fomalhaut is visible at some point every day from New Orleans, with the exact times of visibility determined by the relationship between Fomalhaut’s location in the sky, the Earth’s location in its orbit around the Sun, and the time of day on Earth. Using an astronomical coordinate system that represents an extension of Earth’s latitude and longitude, Fomalhaut is located an an astronomical longitude (called “right ascension”) of about 23 hours. This means that when the local (at New Orleans) time using the stars as our time keeper (called “local sidereal time” or LST) is 23 hours, or close to midnight LST, Fomalhaut will be at its highest point in the sky above New Orleans. To convert this LST time to a local time is a bit tricky, but in general terms Fomalhaut will be at its highest in the sky above New Orleans at midnight local time on 2020 October 1, at 6AM local time on 2020 July 1, at noon local time on 2020 April 1, and at 6PM local time on 2020 January 1. For years other than 2020, as long as you are not interested in dates many decades in the past or future, these times of highest point in the sky are reasonably accurate.
