Sunrise at Camelot-by-the-Sea this morning (left) -- the first day of summer, longest day of the year -- and May 10, 2004
Here on "film" is the predicted result of the sun's northerly (to the left in photographs) declination since May 10, when we blogged:
Looking east from Goomp's terrace. Since the Winter Solstice December 21, the sunrise has been inching northward on its journey to the longest day of the year, the Summer Solstice June 21.
Moments after this shot [above right], the sun -- a dazzling ball of fire -- popped out of the ocean just to right of center in the photograph.
On the Solstice, it will have moved so far north that it will emerge from behind the land mass in the left background of the picture [photo above, left].
Which it did this morning. Fortunately, the fog of last week was long gone, so we got to see it with our own eyes.
As the Earth travels around the Sun in its orbit, the north-south position of the Sun changes over the course of the year due to the changing orientation of the Earth's tilted rotation axes. The dates of maximum tilt of the Earth's equator correspond to the summer solstice and winter solstice, and the dates of zero tilt to the vernal equinox and autumnal equinox.
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