Hi Brent, Everywhere in the world, the sun rises due East on the equinoxes (March 20th and September 23rd approximately). Everywhere in the world, the sun rises in the North East between those dates, such as today. (Ignoring the polar regions.)
May I suggest you get hold of a globe, stick pins in it, or perhaps stick tiny paper sundials on it at your location and several points due north and south of you. Then, in sunshine, turn the globe until it is evidently showing sunrise at one or more of these locations, and the north pole is not in shadow (so it is summer in the northern hemisphere). See for yourself the direction on the globe of the shadow when the sun is anywhere north of the globe's equatorial plane. Also, on the globe look at your line of latitude, 35North. Can you see that it is actually a circle parallel to the equator? This circle defines a plane parallel to the equatorial plane (let's call it the latitude plane) and only a few thousand miles away from it. So, given how small the earth is, compared with the distance to the sun, if the sun's rays at the equator are coming from north of the equatorial plane, at 35N they will be coming from north of the latitude plane. Only if the sun were very small and very close indeed to the earth would it appear south of east to someone at 35N, while north of east to someone on the equator. Your line of latitude does, as you believe, go due east-west. I hope this helps Chris ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brent" <[email protected]> To: "Sundial List" <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, April 17, 2011 9:02 PM Subject: Looking east > Hello again; > > I live at 35N latitude. > > I notice the sun is rising (in April)to my North East. > > That didn't seem right because the sun never gets further > north than the Tropic of Cancer around 24N. > > The sunrise might look this way because of the spherical > shape of the earth. > > So it started me thinking about where is east. > > When I look east I am looking along my line of latitude. > > And that line is supposed to be straight. > > But I now think my line of latitude as well as "east" makes > a big hook to the left as I look easterly and is not > straight at all from my perspective. > > Am I confused? > > thanks; > brent > > --------------------------------------------------- > https://lists.uni-koeln.de/mailman/listinfo/sundial > --------------------------------------------------- https://lists.uni-koeln.de/mailman/listinfo/sundial
