The sun's journey through the year makes an infinity shape - photo:

[The Straight Story]

Hungarian photographer Tamas Ladanyi photographed the sun's position at 9 AM GMT every ten days in 2010, and the result is this striking infinity symbol in the sky, known as an analemma.



http://io9.com/5722210/the-suns-journey-through-the-year-makes-an-infinity-shape

edited to add another photo from the comments section:

[PBS Poll-435]

1. Or a bowling pin. nt

[SpiralHawk]

2. WOW

[thereismore]

3. The first one is a photoshop of an actual analemma and a single photo

of the houses. There is nothing fuzzy about the trees, cars, etc, and there is a sharp outline of the photographer at the wrong place.

[jberryhill]

5. Not to mention the cloud...

[lumberjack_jeff]

8. Good catch of the photographer shadow. n/t

[thereismore]

12. Jeez, now that you mention it, the trees cast shadows from the right,

not from the position of the Suns.

[mia]

4. Analemma over Ukraine

Credit & Copyright: Vasilij Rumyantsev ( Crimean Astrophysical Obsevatory)

Explanation: If you took a picture of the Sun at the same time each day, would it remain in the same position? The answer is no, and the shape traced out by the Sun over the course of a year is called an analemma. The Sun's apparent shift is caused by the Earth's motion around the Sun when combined with the tilt of the Earth's rotation axis. The Sun will appear at its highest point of the analemma during summer and at its lowest during winter. Analemmas created from different Earth latitudes would appear at least slightly different, as well as analemmas created at a different time each day. The analemma pictured to the left was built up by Sun photographs taken from 1998 August through 1999 August from Ukraine. The foreground picture from the same location was taken during the early evening in 1999 July.


http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap070617.html

[patrice]

9. Would there be a perspective from a certain latitude that would even out the proportions of the shap

e?

[lfairban]

10. I don't believe so.

According to this site:

http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2010/12/celebrate_this_winter_solstice.php

the asymmetry is because of the elliptical orbit of the earth around the sun. Latitude does have an effect, as does time of day, but I don't know what that is.

[freshwest]

11. That seems legit. And very interesting. Thank for showing us another way to comprehend where we are.

[PassingFair]

6. The "sun's journey"?

WTF?

[rug]

7. Anal Emma? What the hell?