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Visual Sun Chart Solar Geometry Software   Celestial Sphere   Visual Sun Chart's Skydome Chart displays the visible half of the Earth's celestial sphere. Here is a definition of the celestial sphere in an astronomy book:   “Imagine the night sky. Ignoring the beauty of the view, our immediate impression is that we are at the center of a vast spherical surface on which the stars have been placed. This surface is called the celestial sphere. We regard its radius to be infinite. Actually we can see only one-half of the celestial sphere at any time. The boundary between the visible and invisible portions of the celestial sphere is called the horizon. The poles of the horizon, those points directly overhead and underneath, are called the zenith and the nadir.” –  Laurence G. Taff Computational Spherical Astronomy

 

Visual Sun Chart models the daytime sky, and automatically adjusts the celestial sphere's radius to be just outside the furthest building being modeled.   In the Skydome Sun Chart, the X-axis points East, the Y-axis points North, and the Z-axis points toward the Zenith.   Representation of the skydome, or visible half of the celestial sphere.

 
 

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Tuesday, 06-Jan-2009 09:28:00 GMT