Navigation: do you know where sun rises?

ETA:  For Roger – locate the antipodes, add 6 months and turn your screen upside down!   No, it does the whole world, I’ve just realized that it’s fun to play around with the extreme latitudes to see what happens, and try to map that back to a 3-d visualization of the tilted orbit axis of rotation of Earth.

And I do realize that I got Geralidine Largay’s surname wrong, but we can’t edit OPs at all now, so no way to fix it.

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EDIT: name fixed – Roger

very good info Ralph.

Make it part of your pre-hike preparation, perhaps along with checking the weather forecast, to look up this information for your hike.

Now this is just plain fun as well as useful. Definitely matches the bearing for sunset from our deck. I couldn’t help but plug in winter solstice to compare…

Superb idea to check this, along with moonrise/set time and phase. Sometimes a full moon is so bright it makes it hard to sleep, although no doubt it’s welcome for guys who hike all night. :^)

I also like to use an online calculator to check current magnetic declination, which can be off by a few degrees on old maps.

Nice! Not only because it is a very interesting tool, but also because around my location, the sunrise bearing is 62.51˚, or less than half a degree removed from your Grand Canyon example.

edit – checking around the globe, the variances can be great – but they can also be quite close (Amsterdam,  Mount Everest also fall roughly within half a degree from my location).

Bob, the map is prettier, but I really like the circular graph that I posted in my OP.  It includes the solstices and equinoxes as fainter black lines, so that you can see the variation during the year.

Ito, locations at the same latitude will all look the same (for a given time of year).

For all latitudes, at the spring and fall equinoxes the sun rises due east and sets due west.   In summer, the sun rises and sets in the north before crossing diagonally into the southern part of the sky during the middle of the day;  in winter, the sun is in the southern part of the sky all day.  (N/S reversed in Australia, of course.)

I love this one, Quito, Ecuador

Now what is the tilt of Earth’s axis relative to orbit?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_tilt

Earth’s obliquity oscillates between 22.1 and 24.5 degrees on a 41,000-year cycle. It is currently 23.4 degrees and decreasing.

ETA: I think I’ll wait until it hits 22.1 to thru-hike the PCT, maybe the weather will be more predictable then.

I just got back from a bear hunt with a visiting BPLer and at 60N in late May, if you don’t go to sleep during the “day”, the morning sun is going to hit your tent, heat it up, and wake you up sooner than you wanted.

Strategic camp placement helps – if there’s a mountain or heavy forest cover to the NE (or NNE nearer the Arctic Circle), you can delay that unpleasantly early local sunrise.

Approaching mid-winter here. The sun rises a bit to the right of North. That works.

Cheers

It is currently 23.4 degrees and decreasing.

I’d say that’s about right. :^)

Quito solstice sunset bearing

I’ve learned a lot about sunrises, sunsets, and sun paths using the $10 iPhone app “Sun Seeker”:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sun-seeker-3d-augmented-reality/id330247123

The 3D View (augmented reality) is way cool – finding sunset and sunrise locations and times from campsites is easy and fun. Does not require cell coverage for most functions. A friend and professional videographer uses Sun Seeker constantly to plan shoots.

You can find similar apps at other prices for both iPhone and Android.

— Rex

Weirdest thing ever. I camped up on Hat Creek Rim the other night, just a few nights after summer solstice. The light after sunset in the sky lingered a long time over by Mt. Shasta. In the morning the light appeared in the same place over by Mt. Shasta! It was so strange! I thought, surely the sun doesn’t rise in the same place it sets here, right? Then suddenly the sun pops up in another spot on the horizon, but the sky didn’t really lighten in that spot. The sun simply appeared. It wasn’t quite 180 degrees from where it set. More like 90 degrees. Very confusing.