The planetarium also shows us the ecliptic, which is the path the Sun takes across the constellations in during the course of a year. Observe the Sun's position in relation to these lines as we keep the hour fixed to be noon but move time forward day by day.  We can see that the Sun's height above the horizon changes. The Sun rises higher and higher into the sky as we approach summer and falls lower and lower in the fall. It reaches its highest position on the summer solstice, which occurs in late June and it barely rises above the horizon at all on the winter solstice in late December. Many cultures, including ours, have celebrations around this time, rejoicing that the days are getting longer and brighter.

A year has now passed, and we see that the Sun is back in the same place again. The pattern it has traced around the meridian is called an 'analemma', and looks much like the figure eight.

Let us take a step back and consider the implications of the fact that the Sun's height above the horizon changes throughout the year. The Earth's rotational axis is tilted at an angle of 23 degrees to the Earths orbital plane.