Ja The basline makes no diffenece where you view the ecliptic axis ....it does make a differnce for wether or not the axis exist or not or if you acctualy rotate around any given one or two axis.!? The rotation is not due to the baseline, it is due to the radial conditon around a given axis but you cant simply draw the ecliptic and celestial axis and call them the same axis !? two axis have two different sets of vectors otherwise there would be no such thing as a orbital sander since the basline makes no differnce there either becsue the two roataional axis exisit in the same baseline?...Simply looking in a different direction then the direction of travle dose not constitue moving in that other direction. There is a difference between looking in a direction and traviling in a direction..!?.The direction of travle determines which axis you are traviling around, regarudless of what the base line is. You either move in that direction or rotate in that directio or you do not. You cannot have a real rotaion who's basline is litterly 0. The point was that simple moving that distance will not change where the star in the sky is. It does make a differnce for wether or not a rotaion exist or not. If that were true then no rotaion could exist ever. Rotaion is a not just linear motion it is a xy vector function. You are not traviling around the celestial axis alone you are also in reality traviling around the ecliptic axis you cannot just call them one and the same thing. They are not ..again there is more then one angle in this rotation..look at the top view #1 and the side view#15.. j a <ja_777_aj@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: Allen, I'm serious here. Take your top diagram and your bottom diagram... on each one, collapse the baseline of the annual axis to zero..... You will be left with a diagram of the earth that demonstrates only the nightly star trails in both cases. You have said the baseline should make no difference and that it is essentially zero.... so include that in your drawing and then show me how you'll ever record an annual trail with a camera that is fixed to the earth ? JA... --------------------------------- Get easy, one-click access to your favorites. Make Yahoo! your homepage.