March 20, 2014
Light takes eight minutes to travel from the Sun to the Earth. It took the universe 13.8 billion years to make you.
Solargraphy Analemmas
Birthday · March 20, 2014
A little universe, just for you
Your date.
Ready to give.
Free PNG · 1080 × 1350 · No account needed
Image rights and credit requirements apply when sharing or reusing imagery.
Date & occasion only
Change the year
APOD published March 20, 2014. Credit: Maciej Zapiór and Łukasz Fajfrowski. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
Today is the equinox. The Sun crosses the celestial equator heading north at 16:57 UT, marking the northern hemisphere's first day of spring. To celebrate, consider this remarkable image following the Sun's yearly trek through planet Earth's sky, the first analemmas exposed every day through the technique of solargraphy. In fact, three analemma curves were captured using a cylindrical pinhole camera by daily making three, separate, one minute long exposures for a year, from March 1, 2013 to March 1, 2014, on a single piece of black and white photographic paper. The well-planned daily exposures began at 10:30, 12:00, and 13:30, CET from a balcony looking south from the Kozanów district in Wrocław, Poland. That year's two equinoxes on March 20 and September 22 correspond to the mid-points, not the cross-over points, along the figure-8 shaped curves. Apparent gaps in the curves are due to cloudy days. Two solid lines at the lower left were both caused by a timer switch failure that left the pinhole shutter open.
Image credit: Maciej Zapiór and Łukasz Fajfrowski