Posted by Adam Quinan on December 09, 2003 at 02:43:37 from 66.185.85.76 user Adam.
In Reply to: Re: Scrubbing the Sea Bear-where is the sun posted by Ed Kiser on December 09, 2003 at 01:09:19:
Ed,
I am very sure that your directions are not right. In winter, the sun, in the northern hemisphere, always lies south of the equator (which intersects the horizon at the due east and west positions). So it must always be rising or setting south of the due east-west direction. Similarly in the summer it is always north of due east-west.
The further north you go, the lower in the sky is the curve of the sun's path so it rises further and further to the south, until you reach the Arctic circle when it is so low in the sky that it doesn't even come above the southern horizon at mid-winter. When it does come back after the solstice it will just peek above the horizon in the due south position.
The link takes you to a free web based sky map utility which allows you to play with dates times and locations to see what stars and planets are visible.