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Meiying Lee
Taipei, Taiwan
12/29/2021
04:30 pm

Equipment Details:

Canon EOS 6D with Tamron SP 24-70mm F2.8 Lens and Sun filter for images of the Sun

Post-processing Details:

Each small white dot in the picture is the sun at a different position. All the suns were photographed above a fixed landscape with a sun filter. The landscape photo was taken directly on a clear day without the sun filter. Then I used Startrails to
superimpose all the suns into analemma along with the sunrise and sunset tracks. In addition, the landscape in the animation is different from the landscape in the sun analemma photo. This was to make each sun clearly visible in the animation, so the selected landscape was shot when there was no sun.

Image Details:

2021 Sun Analemma in Taipei in the Morning and Afternoon

After more than one hundred pursuits and struggles with the sun and clouds in a year, I finally finished the works of sun analemma in Taipei in the morning and afternoon!
If you record the sun at the same place and time every day, you will find that the psition of the sun keeps changing. One year later, put all the suns in the same photo or make an animation in sequence, and you will see it draw a big figure of 8 in the sky exactly as the laws of physics tell us. This is really very exciting and moving! The tra-jectory of the sun in a year is called the sun analemma. The link to the video of the sun analemma in Taipei is as follows:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59MW1aqO7L4

The sun analemma seen on the earth is basically like a figure of eight, and the two circles of the figure-8 are of different sizes. This is related to the eccentricity of the earth's orbit and the tilt of the earth's rotation axis. The degree of the figure-8 tilt in the sky is related to the latitude of the observer's location and the recorded time.
In 2021, I spent a whole year in Taipei recording the position of the sun at 7:30 am and 4:30 pm. In the northern hemisphere, the summer solstice of the sun analemma in the morning is at upper left, and the winter solstice at lower right. As for the sun analemma in the afternoon, the tilt direction is different from that in the morning. The summer solstice is at upper right, and the winter solstice at lower left. Whether it is in the morning or in the afternoon, sun analemma has a small circle above and a large circle below. It is also worth noting that the intersection of the figure-8 did not form at vernal equinox or at autumnal equinox. In addition, I recorded four days of sunrise and sunset tracks respectively in spring, summer, autumn and winter, and combined them with sun analemma. The degree of inclination of sunrise or sunset can be used to determine the latitude of the shooting location.
Due to heavy winter and spring rains and frequent summer afternoon thunderstorms, whether it is morning or afternoon, it is not easy to shoot the sun within a fixed period of time in Taipei. Some large gaps in sun analemma indicate that the sun did not show itself to be photographed for up to 20 days, and since some-times the sun had to be photographed even when it was partially hidden in the clouds, several suns in the picture are not complete! Therefore, in addition to the trajectory of the sun in a year, the Taipei sun analemma can also be used to see the weather patterns in Taipei.
The landscape below sun analemma in the morning is the mountains in the southeast of Taipei. In fact, Taipei is a basin surrounded by mountains. The landscape below analemma in the afternoon is the downtown area of Taipei. Note that the tall building in the foreground is Taipei 101 (508 m), which used to be the tallest building in the world from December 1, 2004 to January 7, 2010.