If you download Skyglobe and set it to 6.48 AM on December 21st 2012 and point it East, sunrise at the Winter Solstice is perfectly aligned with Galactic Centre – no great shakes, you may say – it’s being doing that for the last donkey’s years anyway – so what? However, if you set location to 29’58N, 31’08E (Cairo will do) – the Milky Way skims the horizon perfectly in all directions – THIS only happens once every 26000 yrs. (and it’s in a different viewpoint each time!)
If you download Skyglobe and set it to 6.48 AM on December 21st 2012 and point it East, sunrise at the Winter Solstice is perfectly aligned with Galactic Centre – no great shakes, you may say – it’s being doing that for the last donkey’s years anyway – so what? However, if you set location to 29’58N, 31’08E (Cairo will do) – the Milky Way skims the horizon perfectly in all directions – THIS only happens once every 26000 yrs. (and it’s in a different viewpoint each time!)