The conformal transformation of the night sky

Abstract

We give a simple differential geometric proof of the conformal transformation of the night sky under change of observer. The proof does not rely on the four dimensionality of spacetime or on spinor methods. Furthermore, it really shows that the result does not depend on Lorentz transformations. This approach, by giving a transparent covariant expression to the conformal factor, shows that in most situations it is possible to define a thermal sky metric independent of the observer.

10 pages. v2: a minimal change in the Introduction