Jim Carlock, I think the easiest way to visualize this is to do it yourself.
Don't rely on some word description of what happens or you won't understand
it, because it's not really an intuitive concept. You and a stick are going
to orbit the sun. Put a chair in the middle of a room. That is the sun. Now
pick a side of the room and tilt a stick relative to that side. (make it
tilt so that the upper part of the stick is further to the left than the
lower part). Be sure that you know the orientation - in other words, if the
stick is pointing leftward toward the eastern wall of the room, it must
ALWAYS point to the eastern wall, no matter what you are doing. Now you
are going to slowly walk around the chair in the middle of the room. If you
keep the stick always tilting in that same direction relative to the one
wall of the room, you will find as you walk around "the sun" that the upper
part of the stick will either be pointing toward the sun (summer in the
northern hemisphere), sideways relative to the sun (spring or fall), or
pointing away from the sun - (winter in the northern hemisphere). If you
were able to find a ball with a stick pointing out of either end and did
this same thing, you would have a crystal clear understanding of why the
angle of the sun changes from season to season throughout the year, and even
day to day - and also, why the days and nights are of equal length
year-round at the equator - but ONLY at the equator. Incidentally, lots of
scientists are curious as to why the earth has a tilt. Some have speculated
that an enormous collision - say with another planet or a very large moon -
knocked it on its side, so to speak.
"Jim Carlock" wrote in message
.. .
Boy, I'm way off in thinking that the sun travels along the
equator and the position of the earth is what is changing.
I've got to rethink everything and start reading more stuff on
this topic. It's been ages since I've looked into this...
Well here goes...

For some reason I was under the impression that the
earth rotated on an axis and that as the earth rotated
around the sun, that the equator represented the closest
part of the earth to the sun. This means that North Pole
represents one point of the axis and the South Pole
represents the the other point of the axis. The axis does
not noticeably change, but I'm thinking that it does
change and would be noticeable if you could live 1000
or maybe 10,000 years.

Okay, my question is this... if you live on the equator,
are the days and nights equal every day of the year?
http://puuoo.submm.caltech.edu/outre...ay/sunrise.htm

If the sun is always directly above the equator, and the
equator represents the closest portion of the earth to the
sun, how does the sun cross the equator? You lost me
with your statement. I think you meant to say something
else.

http://www.equinox-and-solstice.com/..._solstice.html

The link above indicates that the longest day of the year falls
on or about June 22 (at least for the northern hemisphere). It
should be December 22 for the southern hemisphere. So with
Dec 22 being the longest day for the southern hemisphere and
Dec 22 being the shortest day for the northern hemisphere...
does any of this matter on the equator, being that on the
equator, you'd get 12 hours of day and 12 hours of night
each and every day of the year, because you'd be on the
closest spot on earth to the sun, each and every day of the
year, not taking mountains and depressions into consideration.

Being that the earth rotates on an axis, the autumnal equinox
I think is going to vary slightly for every every position away
from the equator? I think that's the lattitude.

There is a great link here that talks about how the distance of
the earth from the sun never goes past 3% or 4% and states
that the earth is more circular in orbit than elliptical. I used to
think that the distance from the sun is what caused seasons
when I was a kid. That's not true. The link below indicates
that the earth is farthest from the sun on or about July 4th.
Very interesting coincidence!
http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/news/20....asp?list17366

Thanks for the comment, I think I know what you're trying
to say, but you are just not saying it correctly. ;-)

--
Jim Carlock
Post replies to the newsgroup.

"Scott Anderson" wrote:
The autumnal equinox is when the sun crosses the equator. It'll still
be heading south until late December, then it will start heading
north, cross the equator again in late March and peak on it's
northerly track in late June when it starts heading south again.

On Fri, 03 Sep 2004 00:19:29 GMT, "Jim Carlock" wrote:
...

So the way it looks, it'll be about September 21st or 22nd
where the sun will start making it's northerly track again. That
represents the autumnal equinox. On this day the day will be
equal in length to the night.

Thanks Jackie.