NavList:

A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding

HOME

Re: Shape of the Sun's daily motion
From: John Clements
Date: 2022 Feb 9, 12:04 -0800

I think you’re asking about the shape of the sun’s path *when projected onto a flat plane*. That is: stand all day long with a flat window between you an the sun, and use a marker to trace the sun’s path on that window. Is that right?

It’s an interesting problem, but I’m not sure how useful the result is. First, it’s going to depend enormously on the plane of the window. Maybe you want it to be in the east-west plane? And… how should it be tipped? Perpendicular to the earth’s surface? Also, if you’re in a place on earth (say, Northern Hemisphere after the spring equinox), the sun will at some point pass out of the view of the window. Also, as the sun passes due east or due west, I think you’re going to get an infinitely long tail on your window. (okay, not infinitely long. But about 93 million miles long. That's pretty long.)

So: pretty sure it’s not an ellipse.

Apologies, of course, if I’ve misunderstood your question, or said something wrong.

John Clements

What is NavList?

NavList is a community devoted to the preservation and practice of celestial navigation and other methods of traditional position-finding. We're a group of navigators, navigation enthusiasts and hobbyists, mathematicians and physicists, and historians interested in all aspects of navigation but primarily those techniques which are non-electronic.

To post a message, if you are already signed up as a NavList member, start a new discussion or reply to any posted message and use your posting code (this is a simple low-security password assigned when you join). You may also join by posting. Your first on-topic messsage automatically makes you a member, and a posting code will be assigned and emailed to you for future posts.

Uniquely, the NavList message boards also permit full interaction entirely by email. You can optionally receive individual posts or daily digests by email, and any member can post messages by email (bypassing the web site) by sending to our posting address which is "NavList@NavList.net". This functionality is similar to a traditional Internet mailing list: post by email, read by email, reply by email. Most members will prefer the web interface here for posting and replying to messages.

NavList is more than an online community... more about that another day.

© Copyright notice: please note that the rights to all messages and posts in this discussion group are held by their respective authors. No messages or text or images extracted from messages may be reproduced without the explicit consent of the message author. Email me, Frank Reed, if you have any questions.

Subject:
Author:
Start date:	(yyyymm dd)
End date:	(yyyymm dd)

NavList:

A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding

Compose Your Message

NavList

What is NavList?

Join / Get NavList ID Code

Retrieve a NavList ID Code

Email Settings

Custom Index

Add Images & Files
Name or NavList Code:	Email:

Name:
	(please, no nicknames or handles)
Email:

NavList ID Code: