Azimuth of Sripada

To compute Azimuth of Sun at Sunrise and direction to Sripada

  1. Go to URL http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/grad/solcalc/
  2. Locate your latitude longitude by finding the building of observation by panning and zooming on that Google Earth Satellite image interface.
  3. Copy and Paste below the latitude and longitude in degrees to compute the Azimuth to Sripada the coordinates of which have already been entered.
  4. On the Google Earth Interface the computation defaults to current day and time. Enter time Zone as +5.5 and save. Time of sunrise and Sunset are also given.
    The Sunrise behind Sripada event is from 7 to 10 min after time of sunrise since the tip of Sripada 2.2 km high is 1.8 degree above the horizon from Colombo 70 km away.
  5. Enter a time 7 min after sunrise when the top of Sun is at the level of top of the peak. Compute Azimuth of Sun.
  6. Change date till you have Azimuth match to within +/- 0.25 degrees of Azimuth to Sripada
Around March close to spring equinox on March 21st the Azimuth changes about 0.4 degrees north each day. So you may get one day or two when you will see the peak silhouetted on the surface of Sun at Sunrise. Each year azimuth changes by 0.1 degree and after 4 years and a leap day returns to same azimuth on same day of year from same location.

From Google Earth interface in esrl.noaa.gov locate you place of observation and enter

Find Distance, Azimuths Between Two Points
Use Decimal Degrees:

Entered Sripada Peak Coordinates in Degrees:
Latitude   Longitude

Enter Observers Location Coordinates in Degrees:
Latitude   Longitude

Decimal values must be entered as Negative for
South Latitude and West Longitude.

Distance per the Great Circle Method (AM)

   

Results will display in a new Tab.

See log with images of six observations from Mount Residencies for 18 years form 2006 to 2023.
On average a 30% probability of sky being clear for observation.

Location Latitude Longitude Sripada
Azimuth		Distance
Km		DateAlignmentSun
Azimuth		Sun
Altitude		TimeObservation
Mount Residencies 6.83074 79.86384 91.89 70.012024 March 16 +0.08 91.811.806:25:53South
Mount Residencies 6.83074 79.86384 91.89 70.012023 March 17 +0.18 91.711.806:25:45South Video
Mount Residencies 6.83074 79.86384 91.89 70.012023 March 16 -0.22 92.111.806:26:15NorthCloudy