Sidereal Day 1
Sidereal Day 1 : A unit of time used in astronomy, equal to the period of time in which the earth makes one rotation relative to the stars. If we could view the earth from outside the Solar System, we would see that it actually completes 366.242 rotations during one year (one revolution around the sun). We only count 365.242 because one rotation is cancelled out for us by our tour around the sun. Thus the sidereal day, the average interval between two successive risings of the same star, is shorter than the mean solar day (see day) by 1/366.242. The sidereal day equals 23 hours 56 minutes 4.090 54 seconds, or 86 164.090 54 seconds. Like the regular day it is divided into 24 sidereal hours, each sidereal hour being divided into 60 sidereal minutes and each sidereal minute into 60 sidereal seconds. The sidereal hour equals 59 minutes 50.17 seconds; the sidereal minute equals 59.8362 seconds, and the sidereal second equals 0.997 270 second. Traditionally, observatories had clocks set to this sidereal cycle, and astronomers still use sidereal time in making telescope settings
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