On Sun, 6 Jan 2002, fer j. de vries wrote: > The max. altitude of the sun h = 90 - phi + 23.5 degrees.
This reminded me of something I saw recently, that was a bit of a puzzle: I live at 37.3N latitude. This puts the mean plane of the Ecliptic at something like 52.7 degrees elevation. Near the Winter Solstice, the Sun is 23.5 degrees depressed, or a maximum elevation of 29.2 degrees. I can't recall offhand what the angle of the Moon's orbit is, relative to the Ecliptic, but a week or so back, very near full Moon, we came out of a movie theater late, near midnight. I would swear the Moon was barely 5 or 10 degrees off the Zenith! It seemed hard to imagine, at this time of year in the North... Dave 37.29N 121.97W
