{"id":2578,"date":"2010-07-16T11:36:43","date_gmt":"2010-07-16T11:36:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/2010\/07\/16\/sun_positionm\/"},"modified":"2022-08-24T16:57:09","modified_gmt":"2022-08-24T20:57:09","slug":"sun_positionm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/2010\/07\/16\/sun_positionm\/","title":{"rendered":"sun_position.m"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Note<\/strong><\/p>

The file submission referenced in this post is no longer available on File Exchange.<\/p><\/div>\r\n

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Bob<\/a>'s pick this week is sun_position.m by Vincent Roy<\/a>.\r\n <\/p>\r\n <\/introduction>\r\n

Here at MathWorks headquarters in Natick, MA we are entering the dog days of Summer<\/a>. Like many others to help stay cool during the day I minimize unwanted solar heating through windows with shades and blinds.\r\n Of course that conserves energy which also saves money!\r\n <\/p>\r\n\r\n

From a technical aspect you can calculate the position of the Sun. Given a place and time sun_position<\/tt> does the math for you. For example, where is my Noon Sun today?\r\n <\/p>

here.longitude = -71.34993; %deg<\/span>\r\nhere.latitude  =  42.30013; %deg<\/span>\r\nhere.altitude  =  55;       %m<\/span>\r\nnoonToday = datenum('2010-07-16 12:00'<\/span>);\r\nsun_position(noonToday,here)<\/pre>
ans = \r\n     zenith: 63.368\r\n    azimuth: 84.585\r\n<\/pre>
Wikepedia helped get my head around what zenith<\/a> and azimuth<\/a> mean.\r\n   <\/p>\r\n   
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Thanks to Vincent for making that so easy for me to use. His submission also has a lot of good feedback from others. I appreciate submissions like this where people collaboratively make good work even better as the \"updates\"\r\n      section makes clear. Keep up the great work, everyone!\r\n   <\/p>\r\n   
Do you use solar calculations? Tell us about it here<\/a>.\r\n   <\/p>