suns position

[GPack]

Does anyone know in degrees the lowest point the sun will be in the winter time? I'm looking at a job with a ridge of trees and need to make sure it won't be shaded for some parts of the year.
Thanks to anyone that helps.

 

[telectrix]

think the surface temperature is several thousand degrees, winter and summer. not sure if that's centigrade or fahrenheit though. seriously though you need a astronomer for that . try google.

http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/elevsun.htm

 

[GPack]

Sorry. Reading it back I wasn't clear enough. During the winter the sun is at it's lowest position in the sky and I need to make sure the panels I'm putting up won't be shaded by the trees on the ridge line. I'm sure there must be an angle from the horizontal from which the sun sits. Thanks for the effort.

 

[telectrix]

yeah. my first part of the post was an attempt at wit. i'm sure there's a way of determining the angle, but at sunset its at 0degrees. midday around 40degrees. you need patrick moore on this.

 

[davidanson]

It depends where you are in the country. I am in Sheffield and it goes from 13 degrees in December to 60 in June

Shetlands are 6 degrees in December Penzance is 16.5 degrees in December.

 

[BruceB]

In mid winter, sun rises above the horizon by:
90 - your latitude - latitude of tropic of capricorn
For example for bristol-ish 90 - 52 - 23 = 15 degrees approx

Regards
Bruce

 

[TedM]

If you want to know why Bruce's answer is right see here: Sun Charts

If you want an easy way to calculate it try this: NOAA Solar Position Calculator

Select Lat/Long and enter the values and then set the date to 21 Dec and time to 12:00.


And this tells you the Lat/Long of anywhere if you don't already know. Map Channels Simple Geocoder

Here's a screen-shot of the NOAA calculator showing the values for a place at Latitude 50 degrees (set the Longitude to zero as well as the UTC offset to keep things simple.) Here the answer you are looking for is 16.61 degrees elevation.

 

[Worcester]

If you've got an iphone:

Sun Seeker iPhone application - AppStoreHQ ($2.99 !)

And then you've got this gizmo:

Solar Shading / PV Horizon Meter - Solar PV Test Equipment - Solar Shading Meter

or this:

Solar Pathfinder - Videos / YouTube - The Solar Pathfinder - Introduction

 

[GPack]

Thank you for your help. Who needs Patrick Moore when there are so many well rounded electricians about ;0) . The Geocoder and NOAA applications are really useful and exactly what I was looking for. The solar shading meter looks quite handy to have in the back of the van for surveys as well.
Thanks again

 

[daytona600]

what is your location/latitude
or try a dual-axis suntracker to increase outputs in the winter
if shading is a real problem expensive solution is one micro inverter per pv module 185-240wp
each pv module will have its own mppt tracker