Talk:Winter solstice/Sandbox

Draft

Ancient humans marked the winter solstice with various forms of instrumentation. Most simply this was done by setting a stone to mark the point on the horizon where the sun would rise furthest to the south. This technique would later be utilized in buildings like in Turkey or Ireland. Maeshowe and other tombs were constructed so that their chambers would be illuminated by the light of the solstice. The Pueblo, like other cultures, would rely on natural pinpoint cameras that would project the sun onto a rock face such as the one at Chaco Canyon. The rock face was then carved to record the sun's annual journey through the sky.

Chinese astronomers recorded observations of eclipses from 750 BCE.^[1]. Gou Shoujing found that the taller the gnomon, the more acurately the journey of the sun could be measured. . See Dengfeng. See also Sundial#Nodus-based_sundials). The day of the solstice is difficult to detect because for a week on either side the change in the arc of the sun is almost imperceptible. Observers must be able to measure a change in azimuth or elevation less than or equal to about 1/60 of the angular diameter of the Sun. The word solstice comes from the Latin “sol” (for Sun) and the verb “stare” (to be fixed/rigid/unmoving). With modern telescopes and satellites, the precise instant of the solstice can be calculated. There is a moment on the orbital path of the earth when the pole is pointing its furthest away from the sun. This moment does not usually correspond with the maximum distance from the sun. The solstice only aligns with apogee every 21,000 years.

Discussion (Observation)

I started this sandbox to facilitate common editing and review. Feel free to edit. Dw31415 (talk) 14:46, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

Gaocheng Astronomical Observatory#:~:text=The very precise,300 years earlier Dw31415 (talk) 17:35, 23 December 2025 (UTC)