June Solstice Is Solargraph Time

The sun is peaking around the June solstice, which is a good time to place a new solargraph. It's definitely easier to start a six-month image when you mount the pinhole camera in the summer and recover it in the winter, as opposed to setting up a new can in the cold at the winter solstice. I choose both.

Solargraph can with sundial intended to be in foreground of captured image.

In the last half year I had only one solargraph can in place, overlooking wetlands with a sundial in the foreground. I didn't mark the start date on the can, but it was after the December solstice. I thought I'd be clever and try to capture the sundial's gnomon breaking into the sun trails--a dark wedge on the solargraph.

Well, I retrieved the can on June 19, 2018, with this result. Because the can is facing east of south, the solar arc is not symmetrical. Rather, you can see the sunrise azimuths spread out in the east (left), the arcs peak midday to the south, then all of the sunsets converge in the west (right). When the can is facing due south you get symmetrical arcs.

Solargraph ending June 19, overlooking wetlands.

I misjudged the position of the pinhole (red circle on the can, below) relative to the gnomon, so I'll have to try this experiment again. The solar arcs look fabulous, but I'm not sure why the landscape is poorly defined.