Sun Seeker

Welcome to Sun Seeker - the app for discovering everything you need to know about the path of the sun!

It will show you the sun's path and location in a traditional flat compass view and a 3-D augmented reality camera view. It also shows the daily variation in the direction and elevation of the sun's rays on a map view for any location on earth, and for any date or time.

Flat Compass View

• The app opens to a flat, horizontally oriented compass view.
• This view rotates according to the ambient magnetic field, to ensure that it is correctly oriented, like a compass.
• The sunrise and sunset times are displayed on the top right of the screen. Tap on these to toggle between rise and set clock times versus hours and minutes until/since rise and set.
• The "Solar Azimuth" is the compass direction of the sun, expressed in degrees.
• The "Solar Elevation" is the angle of the sun above (+ve) or below (-ve) the horizon.
• The "Shadow Ratio" is the current length of shadow for a vertical object of unit height.
• The "Path Length" is the atmospheric thickness through which the sunlight currently travels, also known as "Air Mass".
• The circular lines on the dial are lines of elevation - 0° at the edge and +/-90° at the centre.
• The yellow line indicates the path of the sun - bolder during the daytime part of its path (above the horizon), and fainter during the nighttime part of its path (below the horizon).
• The sun's path is divided into hour segments, and the clock hour at which the sun crosses each hour line is shown.
• The actual position of the sun for the current time of day is shown with a small yellow sun glyph, and an arrow outside the dial.
• If the user has enabled them, the blue, green and red lines show the solar daytime path at the winter solstice, equinox and summer solstice, respectively.
• Tap on the Here/Location button to select a remote location to display.
• Tap on the Today/Time button to select a different date or to run an animation through time.
• NB - The accuracy of the displayed heading is limited by the capabilites of the built-in magnetometer, and is degraded if your device is near anything that disturbs the background magnetic field.

3-D Camera View

• The horizon is shown as a thick green line.
• Lines of elevation (at 10° intervals) are blue, with thicker blue at multiples of 30°
• Lines of azimuth at cardinal directions (at 90° intervals - N/E/S/W) are solid blue, and fainter blue at the intermediate 45° intervals.
• The yellow "Pointer" guides you towards the current position of the sun. It may be switched on or off.
• The yellow line indicates the path of the sun - bolder during the daytime part of its path (above the horizon), and fainter during the nighttime part of its path (below the horizon).
• The sun's path is divided into hour segments, and the clock hour at which the sun crosses each hour line is shown.
• When the sun is above the horizon, its position is shown with a sun icon, and its shadow point (diametrically opposite) is shown with a greyed sun icon.
• When the sun is below the horizon, its position is shown with a greyed sun icon.
• If the user has enabled them, the blue, green and red lines show the solar daytime path at the winter solstice, equinox and summer solstice, respectively.
• The user may toggle between compass mode and gyroscope-only mode using the compass/gyro icon on the toolbar. In compass mode, the devices magnetometer and gyroscope inputs are used to make the best estimate of true heading, and in this case the user cannot adjust the heading. In gyroscope-only mode, the user may make manual heading adjustments by dragging the view manually. If the compass is not well-calibrated, then you may obtain better results by switching to gyropscope-only mode.

Details View

• This view displays solar details for the currently selected day, the day of the winter solstice and the day of the summer solstice.
• The date and location used for this view are the same as for the Flat Compass View, so if you change the date or location there, this data is updated accordingly.

Map View

• The specified location is shown on the map with a red pin.
• During daylight hours, the current direction of the sun's rays are shown with the yellow pinstripe background pattern. This feature may be switched on or off in the app settings.
• The direction of the sun for each clock hour for which it is above the horizon is shown with a yellow arrow.
• The initial date and time for the sun in this view is the same as for the Flat Compass View, so if you change the date there it will also be changed in the map view.
• You may also change the date and the time using the slider on the lower toolbar. When the date option button is selected, you can change the date to any day of the current year. When the time option button is selected you can change to any hour of the current day.
• If the user has enabled this option in the app settings, then the solar elevation is also shown in degrees at each hour point.
• To move the map marker to your current location, tap the button with the locate me icon.
• To re-center the map on it's marked location, tap the button with the map marker icon.
• To choose a new nearby location, drag the marker and drop it at the new location.
• To choose a new location, you can also search for an address by tapping on the search button and entering the address details.
• You can save the new pin location to your list of saved locations by tapping on the marker callout, and then optionally editing the place details.
• NB - The app will attempt to automatically assign the correct timezone for your selected location. You can check this before save the location. Having the wrong timezone will lead to incorrect times being displayed.

Data Source

Place data courtesy of GeoNames.