Sun overhead

Thanks to Prof. John Thorstensen’s excellent JSkyCalc software, I was able to calculate that the sun was directly overhead Bangalore today.

I think this is really cool.  As I live in the north, the sun is always to the south of us. Each year the sun processes further north in summer, and south in winter, but never passes overhead.  Here in the tropics, by definition, the sun passes overhead Bangalore (13° 01′ 23″ north, which I can read from Google Maps) on its way northward to the Tropic of Cancer (23° 26′ 22″ north), and then again on its way southward to the Equator and then the Tropic of Capricorn.  I missed the opportunity, unfortunately, to run outside at noon (local solar noon, of course, not noon IST) to see that my shadow was directly underneath me.  But now it’s kinda cool to think that the sun is north of me!

This post was transferred from MobileMe to WordPress in 2020, with an effort to retain the content as close to the original as possible; I recognize that some comments may now seem dated or some links may now be broken.

Author: dfkotz

David Kotz is an outdoor enthusiast, traveller, husband, and father of three. He is also a Professor of Computer Science at Dartmouth College. View all posts by dfkotz