Here is one of those 'what the hell is she talking about?' blog posts I know you will miss (and which I will miss making).
There is a new app called SunCalc that calculates the movement of the sun around a given point on any given date.
This first image is then a perfect illustration of the woeful amount of sun Garden65 gets on a normal February afternoon.
The large yellow crescent shows the full extent of the sun's movement during the whole year. Thus on a summer's day it will rise behind the house across the road and sink behind the western horizon along the line of gardens to the left of this picture.
But we are in winter at the moment, so the yellow line on the right shows where the sun is rising now, ie, on this side of the road, and the red line has sunset behind the houses at the back of the garden.
Hope this is making sense so far.
The thin orange line along the edge of the crescent illustrates the height of the sun in the sky. The nearer it is to the outer edge, the lower the sun.
This map below of what will happen on this year's summer solstice hopefully makes things crystal clear. You can see the yellow line in the crescent is now on the inner edge indicating the sun is at its highest trajectory in the sky.
Isn't it interesting that the sun doesn't rise and set on a simple east/west line?
I love this kind of thing, but wonder what practical use it has. Perhaps it would be useful if you were buying a house and wanted to know if the garden would get any sun. It certainly convinces me not to buy a house across the road because those gardens must be in permanent shade.
SunCalc
