Motion of the Ecliptic Across the Sky

☀️🌖🪐 The Ecliptic is defined as the plane in which the Earth orbits the Sun and so from a geocentric view it is the apparent path of the Sun through the sky during the year. This video uses Stellarium software animation to visualize the movement of the sun, moon, and planets along the ecliptic throughout the year and the movement of the ecliptic across the sky each day between maximum north/south positions as defined by the tilt of the Earth's axis.

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Another video showing a view of the ecliptic from 'above' as a full circle:

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Music: Ambient String Quartet by LuxeXx
Imagery/Sources: Stellarium

[ArchaeoastronomyDatabase]

Another video showing a view of the ecliptic from 'above' as a full circle:

[SchubertDipDab]

This is one of the best videos I've seen on visualising the behaviour of the night sky and ecliptic from our perspective on Earth - it's very hard for some of us to just "get it" from a text article and a couple of pictures. The animation just makes it click. Thanks!

[briandoyle]

Brilliant use of Stellarium as a learning aid 👏👏👏👏👏

[maxwellfabricio]

Man this wasreally awesome, thx for making this video for real

[indermohanmendiratta]

Wonderful video that was...
I have been searching such an animation since long.
Request you if you could pls also make a video in which the rising and falling of constellations can been seen in the backdrop.

[imcalleddakota]

Thank you so much for this….this is amazing. Really helps conceptualize precession

[childofGodn]

Sure does rule out flat earth theory! What an awesome God to have created such an immense universe and all it entails! And that's just a smidgen of His intellect 😊❤
Loved this video... great work

[bohol_netherlands]

great video, gives a lot more insight

[jineshshah]

Nice Video. Can you also help with a video which shows the difference in night skies, across latitudes at the same point in time. Let's say what the night sky would look like over Stone henge and over Delhi at the same point in time.

[rickmark]

Hello. Thank you for this fascinating video. I spent a week this year on Bonaire, a Caribbean island at 12ºN latitude. The moon and Venus were in the sky. I noticed that the path they followed through the sky as they set was almost perpendicular to the horizon, unlike the familiar arcing path I'm used to at 45ºN, where I live. I pointed this out to the friends I was with, but it was hard to explain why we were seeing this unfamiliar path through the sky. I would love to see an animation that shows how our view of the ecliptic changes from different latitudes.

[tolland]

Great video. Came here because I was wondering if you could work out the direction of n/s/e/w just from the planets visible at the ecliptic, assuming you know approximately the time of night (and what season and hemisphere you are in, lol) and I'm still a bit confused about that lol.

[casamar]

Great educational video, I learned a lot from you. How did you show the lines of equinox and solstices in stellarium?

[pamelabrinkmeyer]

Looks like a Lorenz Attractor to me! 🙂

[alexnorko]

I could see the red ecliptic line in the video. It makes the explanation confusing

[Alexandra-vtn]

according to this, how sun should be seen from south pole?

[TheJoshening]

Okay but I'm confused. If the Earth is wobbling, how are the stars in a fixed position from out point of view?

[xavharel]

Thank you my friend. I never liked illustrations and animations that shows the solar system to explain what we see in the sky. It's too abstract and intellectual. I think it's better to explain it like you did, with the actual sky that we see during day and night.

So, from what I understand, the ecliptic, from our point of view, is “moving” throughout the day ? Is it why the moon path is sometimes low and sometimes high in the sky ?

If we are in the winter, in the northern hemisphere, during the day, the ecliptic curve is low (as the sun is low) and as we go through the night, the ecliptic curve is moving higher (as the full moon is high) ?

Thank you in advance !

[saurabhmangal]

How can I find the angular speed of the moon across the sky... will this speed change (increase and decrease) and cycle back everyday/month/18 yrs etc.?

[danielesilvaggi]

You are assuming that the earth is round. What if the earth was flat and that the stars and the sun and mood orbit the earth? Show me how this works then. I am sorry but I don't think your ecliptic lines work here.