This may seem a very silly question but here goes..
What is the behaviour of the sun path through the year in the tropics? The following description of the problem may be so shot with misconceptions that the question itself may be the problem, but.... As I understand it, taking an Earth-centred view from northern latitudes, the Sun's path steadily rises in the sky till the summer solstice at which point the sun is straight overhead at the tropic of Cancer. It then sinks in the sky until the winter solstice at which point it is directly overhead on the tropic of Capricorn. If that is true, then between say the equator and the tropic of Cancer the sun is directly overhead twice in the year, once as it 'heads north' to the tropic of Cancer and again as it 'heads south' past the equator. On this basis, any point between the tropics has two longest days in the year and at a point infinitessimally close to the equator the (marginally) longest days are at the equinoxes. Is this true or am I tangled in my own logic?... .. and thanks to "Sundials on the Internet" for pointing me at this list .. John Butler email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Department of Computer Science WWW: http://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/home/jhb (ovo) University of Edinburgh phone: (+44) (0)131-650-5181 ((`-')) Edinburgh EH9 3JZ, UK. fax: (+44) (0)131-667-7209 -"-"-
