Astrophotography by Anthony Ayiomamitis

Image of the Week

Incredible as it may sound, only seven times has someone ever managed to successfully image the solar analemma as a multi-exposure on a single piece of film. An analemma is basically the figure "8" loop that results when one observes the position of the sun at the same time during the day over the course of a year. As a result of the earth's tilt about its axis (23.5°) and its elliptical orbit about the sun, the location of the sun is not constant from day to day when observed at the same time on each day over a period of twelve months. Furthermore, this loop will be inclined at different angles depending on one's geographical latitude.

As suggested by the relatively few number of successfully completed analemmas (seven total including the pioneering photo in 1979), the imaging of the sun over local skies during the course of twelve months is considered one of the most difficult and demanding astronomical phenomenon to image. The analemma presented below is particularly unique as it is the first analemma ever imaged on the southern meridian, the first analemma ever imaged in Greece as well as the first analemma ever imaged during a single calendar year.

Image Details	Solar Analemma with the Parthenon (447-438 BC)	Imaging Details
Body: Sun Mass: 332,900 x Earth Mean Eq Diameter: 109.1 x Earth Distance: 152 million km RA / Dec: 06h 00m 14s / 23° 26' Diameter: 31.48' Magnitude: -26.8		Date: Jan 12, 2002 - Dec 21, 2002 12:28:16 UT+2 Location: Athens, Greece (38.2997° N, 23.7430° E) Equipment: Canon A-1 Canon FD 24 mm @ f/11 Fuji Super HQ 200 Baadar Solar Filter ND5 Exposures: 1/60 sec 41 multiple exposures + 1 foreground exposure Software: Photoshop V6 Processing: Cropping / Resizing Layers JPG Compression