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Sun Patterns

  • Thread starter MrFlyTrap2
  • Start date

MrFlyTrap2

OMG h8 pings
I hope there are some geography or astronomy folks out there. This summer I'm planning on growing some CP's outside in an alley next to my building. While it's on the south side of the building, the neighbor is like 6 feet away. So I'm really on the south side and north side at the same time.

I swear whenever I had to fix something over there, it was in the boiling sun, like no matter when it was. Now when I'm over there, I'm noticing how shady it currently is. Almost as if the sun is more in the south casing a larger shadow over the neighboring building, keeping the alley in the shade.

As summer moves on, will the earths axis rotate and will the sun move to a more vertical alignment over my building? Hence making the alley more sunny as a remember? (and the summer hotter as the season grows)

It's been a long time since I've studied the rotation of the earth, and can't remember the mechanics of the earths axis wobble.

Thanks,
Nathan
 
The suns path through the sky moves along a line called the ecliptic. The sun travels higher in the sky in the sky in the summer ---> longer summer days. When the sun travels lower in the sky, the days are shorter, i.e. winter. So yes, the sun will be high in the sky in the afternoon in summer. Mind you, this is not due to the wobble of the Earth's axis, but the 23.5 degree angle at which the Earth's axis is tilted.
 
Mind you, this is not due to the wobble of the Earth's axis, but the 23.5 degree angle at which the Earth's axis is tilted.

However, in 12,000 years when Vega is the north star :)0o: ) because of the wobble, we may have to have this conversation again.

Here's some wiki information to digest: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecliptic

xvart.
 
Thanks for the info! And I was reading through that wiki article. Do you feel that Ecliptic will be of benefit to me in reducing the neighbors shadow as summer marches on? I came home around 4:30pm and the sun actually broke through the clouds, while there still wasn't direct sun in the alley, the shadow line wasn't as high as I remember a week ago.
 
The best way I can think to describe it is at any time during the day you go outside now, and then again in the summer, the sun will be higher in the sky in the summer. From winter to summer, the sun will be 23 degrees higher in the sky. I can't really say other than that because it's tough for me to visualize the area the area you describe. Just try and visualize the sun's path now, and the propogate it a little higher and see if that comes through the gaps. Does this crappy ascii drawing help?



____O_______
/ \
/ \
/ ___O__ \
/ / \ \
/ / \ \
/ / \ \
/ / \ \
/ / \/ \/
summer winter



xvart.

edit: clearly that didn't work... three minutes of my life I'll never get back... lol.
 
hehe xvart, I think I understand what your saying though.

Here's a pic to give you an idea of the area.



My building is to the left, and the alley is facing directly south. The bank is the neighbor casting the shadow. You can see all the different shadows the building is throwing off, but the shadows seem to be changing with the weeks here. I'm just hoping I can grow some CP's in here this summer. The spot where the grill is though is in full southern sun, it's just not a lot of space.
 
Okay, let me give this a shot. I am a bit confused as to your ally's location:
My building is to the left, and the alley is facing directly south.
While it's on the south side of the building
^You're saying two different things here....

Look at the picture below... Is that South bearing correctly placed? If so, then we can move on to disscuss the sun.
 
Thank you Joossa, I'm not doing a good job of describing the orientation. I was describing it as if you were looking out one of the windows, looking into the alley. If you were doing that, you'd be looking to the south. Your arrow is pointing to east. The picture was taken in the evening and the sun might have been behind me while taking the picture.

Yesterday was somewhat cloudy, but on a normal day, the grill would always be in the sun as it would not be obstructed by the neighbor shown on the right side of the picture. The rest of the alley though is what I'm concerned about, as that's the most space, but is currently getting heavy shadows by that neighbor.
 
Check out the animations on this site to see these effects.

The apparent position of where the sun meets the horizon at sunset and sunrise will shift with the seasons too.

A good architect will take these into account when designing a building to minimize or maximize the effects of heating from solar radiation. There are computer programs that architects use to model this.

While tedious the math just involves Euclidean geometry. After all Erastothenes was able calculate the circumference of the earth to an astounding degree of accuracy around 250 BC. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes#Eratosthenes.27_measurement_of_the_Earth.27s_circumference
 
  • #10
From the page NaN linked to...

http://www.wsanford.com/webcam/earthdial/archive/extras/analemma.gif

I think this is showing the wobble I'm curious about, and when the cross hair is in the US, that must be the time I'm thinking bout where I remember sun in the alley. I'm going to try to hunt down a weather student to find out where we're currently at. And according to my field observer, while at work today the alley was still in the shade at noon today.

So what do you guys think? Should I try to figure this out more, or just screw it, set stuff up, and see what happens?

Nate
 
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