A Year of Sunrises from Taipei, Taiwan
March 21, 2022
Photographer: Meiying Lee
Summary Author: Meiying Lee
The montage above shows a year of sunrises (2012-2013) as observed from Taipei, Taiwan. If you carefully view where the Sun rises, you’ll note that its position moves a lot during the course of a year, likely a lot more than you might think. This is the result of both Earth's revolution and the tilt of the Earth's rotation axis.
At the bottom of the sequence, shortly after the autumnal equinox on October 5, sunrise was a little bit south of east and then continued toward the south as the year progressed. When the Sun is directly above the Tropic of Capricorn at noon (the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere -- December 21), sunrise occurs in the southernmost position in the sky.
At the spring equinox, sunrise is almost exactly due east. Unfortunately, because of spring rains in Taipei, I wasn’t ablet to record this sunrise. At the summer solstice (June 21), the Sun is directly above the Tropic of Cancer at noon, and so sunrise occurs in the most northerly position in the sky. After the summer solstice, the sunrise position will slowly return to the east, and at the time of the autumnal equinox, the Sun again rises due east, completing the one-year cycle.
Photo details: Each sunrise photo is a combination of the sunrise photo of that day and the landscape. The outline of the hill, just southeast of Taipei, is used as a reference for alignment. Photos were taken in Taipei, Taiwan from October 5, 2012, to September 24, 2013.