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Talk:Autumnal equinox (disambiguation)

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Please correct misconceptions

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The orbital diagram is beautiful, but misleading. It suggests that the earth's axis points in a different direction at different seasons of the year. It does not. The earth's axis should be tipped in the same direction for both the summer and winter solstice illustrations. You should then change the direction from which the sunshine comes from -- from the right in one, and from the left in the other -- just as it actually does when the earth shifts position by 180 degrees in its orbit. I'd omit the illustration for the equinoxes entirely. Anything you would draw would suggest that the earth's axis is oriented straight up and down, which is of course not correct. In reality, the sunlight would be streaming perpendicular to the page, which is not possible to draw in a two-dimensional illustration. User:BartBenjamin


It would also probably be better to use the terms "December Solstice" and "June Solstice" instead of "winter" and "summer." That way, it is correct for all hemispheres. That is how the International Planetarium Society solves this dilemma for its members located in both hemispheres. User:BartBenjamin