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   TiltingSun2    v2.5.0   March 20 , 2008

 
The Sun's and Earth's rotation axes are both tilted with respect to the ecliptic, the plane of the Earth's orbit around the Sun. This causes the Sun's poles to appear to point in different directions throughout the year as seen in an equatorially mounted telescope.
   

Use an altazimuth mount or camera tripod and things get more complicated!

The 'TiltingSun2' views at left show the sun at three times on March 15, 2006 at Toronto as it would be oriented in a PST H-Alpha 'scope. A PST inverts the view. A Solarmax40/60/90 has an erect view but left and right are flipped. Unlike the Moon, the Sun has no permanent markings and without a guide it is not easy to know its orientation..
   
 
   
      


TiltingSun2 is freeware which shows the Sun's orientation, poles, equator, rotation direction, prominence position angles and drift direction for any date, time and location.

The view can be customized for any telescope and mounting.

The meridian tilt, the solar parameters Bo, P and Lo are also displayed numerically.

TiltingSun-G lets you make custom grids to overlay on solar images.

Large View.         Download TiltingSun & TiltingSun-G.