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It is the complement to the solar altitude or solar elevation, which is the altitude angle or elevation angle between the sun’s rays and a horizontal plane. [1] [2] At solar noon, the zenith angle is at a minimum and is equal to latitude minus solar declination angle. This is the basis by which ancient mariners navigated the oceans. [3]
The solar azimuth angle is the azimuth (horizontal angle with respect to north) of the Sun's position. [1] [2] [3] This horizontal coordinate defines the Sun's relative direction along the local horizon, whereas the solar zenith angle (or its complementary angle solar elevation) defines the Sun's apparent altitude.
Similar equations are coded into a Fortran 90 routine in Ref. [3] and are used to calculate the solar zenith angle and solar azimuth angle as observed from the surface of the Earth. Start by calculating n , the number of days (positive or negative, including fractional days) since Greenwich noon, Terrestrial Time, on 1 January 2000 ( J2000.0 ).
Heliographic coordinate systems are used to identify locations on the Sun's surface. The two most commonly used systems are the Stonyhurst and Carrington systems. They both define latitude as the angular distance from the solar equator, but differ in how they define longitude. In Stonyhurst coordinates, the longitude is fixed for an observer on ...
A 2021 publication [8] about solar geometry first calculates the x-, y-, and z-component of the solar vector, which is a unit vector with its tail fixed at the observer's location and its head kept pointing toward the Sun, and then uses the components to calculate the solar zenith angle and solar azimuth angle. The calculated solar vector at 1 ...
The subsolar point moves constantly on the surface of the Earth, but for any given time, its coordinates, or latitude and longitude, can be calculated as follows: [3] ϕ s = δ , {\displaystyle \phi _{s}=\delta ,} λ s = − 15 ( T G M T − 12 + E m i n / 60 ) . {\displaystyle \lambda _{s}=-15(T_{\mathrm {GMT} }-12+E_{\mathrm {min} }/60).}
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The solar compass works on the principle that the direction to the Sun at a specified time can be calculated if the position of the observer on the surface of the Earth is known, to a similar precision. The direction can be described in terms of the angle of the Sun relative to the axis of rotation of the planet.