APOD: A Year in Sunsets (2024 Dec 21)

[APOD Robot]

A Year in Sunsets

Explanation: A year in sunsets, from April 2023 to March 2024, track along the western horizon in these stacked panoramic views. The well-planed sequence is constructed of images recorded near the 21st day of the indicated month from the same location overlooking Cairo, Egypt. But for any location on planet Earth the yearly extreme northern (picture right) and southern limits of the setting Sun mark the solstice days. The word solstice is from Latin for "Sun" and "stand still". On the solstice date the seasonal drift of the Sun's daily path through the sky appears to pause and reverse direction in its annual celestial journey. Of course the Sun reaches a stand still on today's date. The 21 December 2024 solstice at 09:21 UTC is the moment of the Sun's southernmost declination, the start of astronomical winter in the north and summer in the south.

<< Previous APOD

This Day in APOD

Next APOD >>

[RocketRon]

Very illustrative. Thanks for sharing.
Its not until you see the changing sunset points that just how far 'the suns' path varies is obvious.

btw, your moon analemma with pyramids was great too.
https://i1.adis.ws/i/canon/the-egyptian ... on-full-dt$

[Eclectic Man]

Very nice illustration. I tried to do something similar from my home in Reading, UK, but the 'skyline' is nothing like as attractive, and we have too many cloudy days as the climate is 'poor'.

(In fact the climate is so poor that when companies trade Cocoa plants they send them first to Reading for two years, where all the pathogens die off, and then they are sent on to the purchaser. Sad, but true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internati ... a%20plants.

"The International Cocoa Quarantine Centre (ICQC), located in Arborfield, a suburb of Reading, Berkshire, United Kingdom, is an organization aiming to reduce the amount of disease affecting cocoa plants. ")

[ALAN M KING]

EXCELLENT!
How wide is the photographic angle? 180 degrees would show due South and due North (preferably axial, rather than magnetic S & N); a wider angle could include both within each image.

[Tripp]

SO, I've always wondered, what is the degree of change of the sunsets from winter to summer solstice (or, from equinox to solstice)? That is, how many degrees will the apparent sunset change from solstice to solstice? I can imagine this will significantly change by latitude. But, let's say in the Cairo, as pictured. Any ideas? Or, if you have a web URL that might list (or calculate) the 'spread' by latitude?

[ExplorerEGYWO]

Very illustrative. Thanks for sharing.
Its not until you see the changing sunset points that just how far 'the suns' path varies is obvious.

btw, your moon analemma with pyramids was great too.
https://i1.adis.ws/i/canon/the-egyptian ... on-full-dt$

Thank you so much, it took alot of efforts bit of course worth the pain
The Analemma was much harder as i didnt sleep properly in the last two weeks of imaging to shoot the right image in its right time.
I hope it could win APOD for that too