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The use of the word also means "in a direction opposite to the usual" and "in a direction contrary to the apparent course of the sun". It is cognate with the German language widersinnig, i.e., "against" + "sense". The term "widdershins" was especially common in Lowland Scots. [2] The opposite of widdershins is deosil, or sunwise, meaning ...
Direction determination refers to the ways in which a cardinal direction or compass point can be determined in navigation and wayfinding.The most direct method is using a compass (magnetic compass or gyrocompass), but indirect methods exist, based on the Sun path (unaided or by using a watch or sundial), the stars, and satellite navigation.
The word north is related to the Old High German nord, [1] both descending from the Proto-Indo-European unit *ner-, meaning "left; below" as north is to left when facing the rising sun. [2] Similarly, the other cardinal directions are also related to the sun's position. [3] [4] [5]
Sunwise, sunward or deasil (sometimes spelled deosil), are terms meaning to go clockwise or in the direction of the sun, as seen from the northern hemisphere. The opposite term is widdershins (Lowland Scots), or tuathal (Scottish Gaelic). [1]
Sun path, sometimes also called day arc, refers to the daily (sunrise to sunset) and seasonal arc-like path that the Sun appears to follow across the sky as the Earth rotates and orbits the Sun. The Sun's path affects the length of daytime experienced and amount of daylight received along a certain latitude during a given season.
Systematically observing the sunrise, people discovered that it occurs between two extreme locations at the horizon and eventually noted the midpoint between the two. Later it was realized that this happens on a day when the duration of the day and the night are practically equal and the word "equinox" comes from Latin aequus, meaning "equal", and nox, meaning "night".
Also, unlike most other solar measurements, sunrise occurs when the Sun's upper limb, rather than its center, appears to cross the horizon. The apparent radius of the Sun at the horizon is 16 arcminutes. [1] These two angles combine to define sunrise to occur when the Sun's center is 50 arcminutes below the horizon, or 90.83° from the zenith. [1]
The solar zenith angle is the zenith angle of the sun, i.e., the angle between the sun’s rays and the vertical direction.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.