Solar Analemma 2015: A Year-Long Picture

A compilation of images of the Sun taken at the same time and place over the course of 2015, as seen from Sulmona, Abruzzo, Italy. Credit and copyright: Giuseppe Petricca.

If you took a picture of the Sun every day, always at the same hour and from the same location, would the Sun appear in the same spot in the sky? A very fine image, compiled by astrophotographer Giuseppe Petricca from Italy, proves the answer is no.

“A combination of the Earth’s 23.5 degree tilt and its slightly elliptical orbit combine to generate this figure “8” pattern of where the Sun would appear at the same time throughout the year,” said Petricca.

This pattern is called an analemma, the full version shown below:

A compilation of images of the Sun taken at the same time and place over the course of 2015, as seen from Sulmona, Abruzzo, Italy. Credit and copyright: Giuseppe Petricca.
A compilation of images of the Sun taken at the same time and place over the course of 2015, as seen from Sulmona, Abruzzo, Italy. Credit and copyright: Giuseppe Petricca.

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