August 6, 2002

2:01 PM

A very well designed site on the Analemma. Don't be scared off by the math, as there are excellent diagrams and quicktime movies on this difficult to visualize phenomena. Difficult, but not impossible, to photograph (probably less than 10 photos are in existence) Ulrich Bienert came close, and has a gallery and some tips if you're so inclined.
posted by quercus (12 comments total)

Sorry, but I'm not inclined to view those frames, bevelled rollover buttons, and textured background as "well-designed," but the astronomy and analemma photos are pretty cool.
posted by brownpau at 2:09 PM on August 6, 2002

I was not familiar with the term 'annalemma' It leaves me wondering if there are other un-googlable photos of this out there by patient photographers who simply wanted to map the progress of the sun's path through the sky. Thanks.
posted by vacapinta at 2:11 PM on August 6, 2002

Uh-oh, I think we blogdotted analemma.com. ;)

I had a copy of EZ-Cosmos on my old IBM 286, and I enjoyed experimenting with the solar system animator using different time increments. It's always amazing to see the strange shapes the sun and planets form in their rotations through the hours, years, and centuries.
posted by brownpau at 2:15 PM on August 6, 2002

(Oh, wait, it's back. Nevermind.)
posted by brownpau at 2:34 PM on August 6, 2002

Ahhh! This brings back a horrible college memory. I once failed a phy. sci. paper because I explained the rotation of the earth without referring to the 23.5 degree tilt on it's axis. Sure I had the whole tilt thing down, but did not include on it's axis. Damn that professor.

I have never heard the term annalemma. Good link, thanks!
posted by bmxGirl at 2:42 PM on August 6, 2002

From my recycling of a memepool post about analemma.com back in January, a cool applet that saves you a year of time-lapse photography, or at least a lot of convoluted mathematics.
posted by gleuschk at 4:08 PM on August 6, 2002

Boy, aren't we the design snob, brownpau. Though it certainly wouldn't win any web guru awards, I found it attractive and easily navigated.

Related: analemmatic sundials, and the influence of the analemma effect on the development of modern timepieces, and thereby our modern conception of time. There's grammar, etymology, and math. The analemma is more accurately the path traced by the shadow of something obscuring the sun, that is, the representation of the path. Also: A physics & astronomy sundial showing an analemma path, and an analemma sundial in a frosted window. Searching on analemma+sundial gets you tons of things along this line. There's also a lunar analemma to observe.
posted by dhartung at 4:14 PM on August 6, 2002

>Boy, aren't we the design snob, brownpau

Well, I just think it needs a bright pink background and a 1.2MB Flash intro to be really cool. ;D
posted by brownpau at 4:25 PM on August 6, 2002

Sorry, but I'm not inclined to view those frames, bevelled rollover buttons, and textured background as "well-designed

As someone who prefers simple and unobtrusive functional design over 'impress your net-nerd friends with the latest font du jour, hot photoshop filter and script' pizzaz I disagree.
posted by HTuttle at 4:26 PM on August 6, 2002

Sweet.

Of course this reminds me of the analemma cave calendar that Tom Hanks's character used in Cast Away.
posted by beth at 4:47 PM on August 6, 2002

<unintentional_nasty_thoughts>
Am I the only one who, reading the article much too quickly, read it as "Anal Emma"? Until I read the part about not being afraid of the math I thought someone posted a porn link.

Maybe it's just me... :)
</unintentional_nasty_thoughts>
posted by crankydoodle at 5:05 PM on August 6, 2002

In elementary school we used the shadow method (much smaller scale) for the school year but on a weekly basis.

It was enlightening, I wonder how this would work using the moon.
posted by DBAPaul at 3:01 AM on August 7, 2002