The earth's ecliptic plane (ie, the plane where the sun's trajectory in relation to the earth lies, if we where to consider the earth as stationary and the sun as moving in relation to it) is near the equator. The equatorial plane doesn't coincide with the ecliptic one because of the tilt in the earth's axis, but it is close.
As such, the sun might move east to west during the day, but its apparent trajectory is always offset towards the equator, regardless of where the observer is standing. What this means is that for an observer in the north hemisphere the sun's apparent trajectory is still an east to west arc across the sky, but this arc is offset to the south. Notice, the arc is offset...the rise and sundown points are still east and west, it's the arc that connects them that exhibits the shift towards the equator. For a southern hemisphere observer it's similar but offset to the north.
Now, i don't know exactly how high the sun should be, or how much to the south the arc of its apparent trajectory lies in the place we see in the screenshots, but there definitely should be a shift to the south in regards to the sun's trajectory across the sky.
Pretty impressive that they model such things if you ask me, as that could hint at more nifty features for the future...night bombing missions and navigating by the stars anyone?
07-13-2010, 09:56 PM
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