https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBclxF2zCPc

Having watched a PBS documentary on timekeeping and its relationship to ancient monuments and alignments of monuments to the cardinal points on Solstice/Equinox alignments, it is easy to criticise those involved in the programme but much better to draw attention to the fact that these structures exist as working monuments. The criticism is restricted to the irritating habit of assigning to our ancestors superfluous beliefs for self-aggrandising purposes of contemporaries. Of course, most the contemporary technical details are skewed towards celestial sphere conceptions which is only a recent arrival (RA/Dec).

It is true that the length of a shadow on the December Solstice can determine the length of the annual cycle as a rough estimate as the Sun stands still in its Southern most declination, at least in the Northern hemisphere before slowly moving North again. Some of the older monuments don't align to midwinter, but register the 3 months from what in the present calendar is the end of October to the beginning of February with midwinter dividing the period.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mound_of_the_Hostages

The more accurate system are the Decans which do not rely on what the Sun is doing, but rather the seasonal first appearance of a new grouping of stars every 10 days. It leads to the further refinement that the brightest background star Sirius skips an annual appearance every fourth cycle of 365 days by one day. When I encounter this perspective, I get enormous satisfaction such as the magnificent Book of Job-

" Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season? or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons? Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth?" Job 38

The present explanations, even before getting into the era of the Ptolemaic framework and solar system research, is far too untidy at the moment to be of any use to observers today. It is because of that deficiency, people who would normally find contemporary observations of the annual transition of the stars from left to right of the Sun or from an evening appearance to a dawn appearance of a star using the older framework, now can't work with the necessary modifications to how we see our motion and those of the their planets in a Sun-centred system.

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Putin has cancer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It is just one of those things which affirms that timekeeping and the 24 hour day is anchored to the sunrise/noon/sunset cycle as one rotation with noon being the central reference. I am speaking of DST of course.

Considering Greenwich represents the location where the Prime Meridian runs through from pole to pole, I take London as an example-

https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/uk/london

Presently, there is a timekeeping symmetry between sunrise to noon and noon to sunset, where daylight lengths are also roughly symmetrical.

Although the clock hand moves forward by an hour when DST is applied, the 24 hour system moves back through the natural framework where an asymmetry between natural sunrise to clock noon and clock noon to natural sunset creates more daylight between clock noon and sunset (longer evenings) and less daylight from clock noon and sunrise. It is a matter of going back to the timeanddate website above and moving the Sun back closer to dawn by one hour while remembering that timekeeping is subservient to the natural cycle.

I don't mind that many people say clocks move forward when DST is applied, however, in terms of working with timekeeping and planetary dynamics it is crucial to know how clock noon is anchored to natural noon and therefore into the framework where one rotation represents one 24 hour day with cause and effect attached such as the day/night cycle.

The more I consider it, the more it seems an unnecessary complication.

The important feature is that the 24 hour day is anchored to the sunrise/noon/sunset cycle with noon as the central reference and therefore the idea that timekeeping is linked directly to the daily change in the position of the stars, where no cause and effect exists, falls below any standards of conclusions, astronomical, intellectual or bottom line

https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/uk/london

The timekeeping misadventure which led to the scientific method and experimental theorists is that they inverted the principles of astronomy where interpretation takes priority over predictions. The theorists tried to draw conclusions based on predictions, whereas astronomy draws conclusions based on observations. The result was that experimental theorists thought they had a license to equate experimental sciences with solar system structure and planetary motions while not realising the limits of predictive astronomy and especially one where accurate clocks emerged in the late 17th century.