21 December 2012

Like a three-strand necklace of pearls, this composite photo shows the sun’s position hour by hour at the summer solstice, the vernal equinox, and the winter solstice.

It was taken at the same location in Bursa, Turkey over a period of six months by award-winning amateur astronomer and night sky photographer Tunç Tezel, a member of The World At Night.

The top strand is the sun’s transit during the summer solstice in June, the longest day of the year.  You can tell the sun was up for 15 hours because there are fifteen pearls on that strand.

The middle strand was taken during the equinox when every place on earth has 12 hours of daylight.

The lowest strand was taken on this day, the winter solstice, when there are 9 hours of sunlight in northern Turkey.

There are nine hours of daylight in Pittsburgh today, too.

Northern Turkey and western Pennsylvania are on approximately the same latitude so these sun tracks are what we see here in Pittsburgh.

The whole world shares the same sky.  We all can see the sun as pearls.

(photo copyright by Tunç Tezel, member of The World At Night (TWAN).  This photo was NASA’s Astronomy Photo Of the Day on September 23, 2012.  Click on the photo to see the original and learn more about its creation.)