TiltingSun 3.0

The Sun's and Earth's rotation axes are both tilted with respect to the ecliptic, the plane of the Earth's orbit around the Sun. This causes the Sun's poles to appear to point in different directions throughout the year as seen in an equatorially mounted telescope. Use an altazimuth mount or camera tripod and things get more complicated! TiltingSun is freeware which shows the Sun's orientation, poles, equator, rotation direction, prominence position angles and drift direction for any date, time and location. The view can be customized for any telescope and mounting. The meridian tilt, the solar parameters Bo, P and Lo are also displayed numerically.