APOD: 2026 September 20 – Analemma over the Callanish Stones

APOD: 2026 September 20 – Analemma over the Callanish Stones. APOD APOD Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

Analemma over the Callanish Stones Explanation: If you went outside at the same time every day and took a picture that included the Sun, how would the Sun’s position change. A visual answer to that question is an analemma, a composite image taken from the same spot at the same time over the course of a year. The featured analemma was composed from images taken every few days at noon near the village of Callanish in the Outer Hebrides in Scotland, UK.

In the foreground are the Callanish Stones, a stone circle built around 2700 BC during humanity’s Bronze Age. It is not known if the placement of the Callanish Stones has or had astronomical significance. The ultimate causes for the figure-8 shape of this and all analemmas are the tilt of the Earth axis and the ellipticity of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun.