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I should say it is the most complicated photograph I have ever made. It
shows position of the Sun on the sky in the same time of a day during one
year. Analemma - a trace of the annual movement of the Sun on the sky - is
well known among experts of sun-dials and old Earth's globes as a diagram of
change of seasons and an equation of time. Between August 30th 1998 and
August 19th 1999 I have photographed the Sun 36 times on a single frame of
60-mm film. The pictures were taken exactly at 5:45 UT (Universal time) of
every tenth day. Previously, the position of the Sun on the sky was
calculated with computer as well as optimal moments of time for taking each
of the exposures. However, my success was strongly limited by the weather.
Nobody can guarantee fine weather every tenth day even for a few minutes.
Approximately, there are 120-170 sunny days a year in Crimea. That made me
sure that my aim could be achieved. To do the job, the camera must stay
fixed during 12 months. It was difficult to find such a place where the
camera would be safe. The solution of the problem was to make a plug-in
platform rigidly connected to the camera, which allowed to keep accurate
position of the camera during next mountings. Thus the platform with the
camera could be mounted and dismounted repeatedly. I use "Kiev-60" camera
with the lens "Flektogon" 4/50 and neutral filter N-4. Vertical field of
view of the objective is about 50 degrees which allowed to photograph all
the "figure-of-eight". The exposures were 1/1000 seconds with the diaphragm
22. When the weather was bad the shooting might be postponed for 1-2 days,
but not longer. Due to bad weather conditions I had to miss 2 exposures
(November 26th and June 20th); the operating schedule was shifted but it had
almost no influence on the appearance of the resulting picture. The
background photograph was taken on 10th July 1999 in the evening.
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