Hello Rui,
I thought the URL below might be of some interest to you, in addition
to what Roger has already supplied.
http://www.jgiesen.de/sunshadow/index.htm
Regards,
Luke Coletti
Rui Farinha wrote:
>
> Sorry the Off-Topic and my english...
>
> Hi Roger Bailey and other dear friends:
>
> Two questions:
>
> 1) Last week i red a magazine called "Cosinus" (a french publication
> to kids). One of the articles was about the highest full moon in the
> year being the one closest to the Winter solstice (Northern
> Hemisphere) - during this day we could "watch" the "lowest sun" to a
> given latitude and the biggest shadow.
>
> I'm writing something about this "curiosity" ("the highest and lowest
> sun" and "the highest and lowest moon" during an year) to the school
> journal but i would like to know more about this subject
> (calculations, pictures, schemes, etc.) that could help me being more
> accurate. Could you or anyone help me with this subject? (Internet
> sites or so).
>
> 2) I'm also doing (with students) the well known activity: determining
> the N-S (and E-W) directions by marking the end of a stick shadow
> during several hours of a day and then, connect all the points
> obtained and see the curved line and so on... I'm also trying to see
> the line that we obtain during solstices and equinoxes days and dates
> between this ones to make comparisons (by the way, speaking in
> mathematical terms, what can we consider this curves?). I will try to
> compare the curved lines with the ones obtained in dates close to the
> ones wehave work but in Southern Hemisphere (contact schools in Brasil
> or other countries).
> A) Does anyone knows sites about this activities and
> astronomical explanations with draws and pictures?
> B) Does anyone knows schools that have made this
> activities included in astronomy or geography projects?
>
> (I've already searched google in english, portuguese and spanish but
> i'm not satisfied with the materials i obtained).
>
> Thank you very much.
> Sorry if i wasn't very clear explaining my doubt but my english...
> Rui Farinha
>
>
> Roger Bailey wrote:
>
> > Hi Dave,
> > When the moon was full on 30 December, its declination was 24
> > degrees north.
> > Using the formula below this would put it at an altitude of 76.7
> > degrees at
> > your latitude. This is half a degree higher than the sun ever gets
> > at your
> > latitude. The moon can get to a declination of ~29 degrees as its
> > orbital
> > plane is tilted about 6 degrees from the ecliptic. The moon can get
> > even
> > closer to the zenith at your location.
> > It is hard to judge how close celestial bodies are to the zenith.
> > One trick
> > is to turn around, full circle while watching the body. The distance
> > from
> > the zenith is much more apparent when you have seen it from all
> > sides as you
> > turn.
> > Roger Bailey
> > Walking Shadow Designs
> > N 51 w 115
> > where the sun only gets to an altitude of 15.5 degrees these days!
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > -koeln.de
> > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Dave Bell
> > Sent: January 6, 2002 6:20 PM
> > To: Sundial, Mailinglist
> > Subject: Was Re: Polar ceiling sundial
> > 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
> >
