Position of the Sun (azimuth) in Lua

Question

There is only one function in LUA I could find online, but it gives wrong values (measured with professional online tools).

It appears that from the sunrise till some time after the noon the math works, but after, the Sun's angle goes back to the sunrise position. Should be from 106° to 253°, currently it's from 106° to ~180° to 106°.

Function I'm using:

-- solar altitude, azimuth (degrees)
function sunposition(latitude, longitude, time)
    time = time or os.time()
    if type(time) == 'table' then time = os.time(time) end

    local date = os.date('*t', time)
    local timezone = (os.time(date) - os.time(os.date('!*t', time))) / 3600
    if date.isdst then timezone = timezone + 1 end

    local utcdate = os.date('*t', time - timezone * 3600)
    local latrad = math.rad(latitude)
    local fd = (utcdate.hour + utcdate.min / 60 + utcdate.sec / 3600) / 24
    local g = (2 * math.pi / 365.25) * (utcdate.yday + fd)
    local d = math.rad(0.396372 - 22.91327 * math.cos(g) + 4.02543 * math.sin(g) - 0.387205 * math.cos(2 * g)
      + 0.051967 * math.sin(2 * g) - 0.154527 * math.cos(3 * g) + 0.084798 * math.sin(3 * g))
    local t = math.rad(0.004297 + 0.107029 * math.cos(g) - 1.837877 * math.sin(g)
      - 0.837378 * math.cos(2 * g) - 2.340475 * math.sin(2 * g))
    local sha = 2 * math.pi * (fd - 0.5) + t + math.rad(longitude)

    local sza = math.acos(math.sin(latrad) * math.sin(d) + math.cos(latrad) * math.cos(d) * math.cos(sha))
    local saa = math.acos((math.sin(d) - math.sin(latrad) * math.cos(sza)) / (math.cos(latrad) * math.sin(sza)))

    return 90 - math.deg(sza), math.deg(saa)
end

Example request:

lat, long = 45.327063, 14.442176 -- Rijeka, Croatia
time = {year=2016, month=2, day=17, hour=17, min=30} -- end of the day
altitude, azimuth = sunposition(lat, long, time)

Result is:

• -0.1 degrees in altitude
• 106 degrees in azimuth.

Result should be:

• -0.1 degrees in altitude
• 253 degrees in azimuth.

I have found multiple solutions in other programming languages and even tried to rewrite in Lua but without any success. Too complex math behind the solution.

I'm using it for my Corona SDK app that will show position of the Sun relative to the device. The only solution that currently works is a PHP or Javascript script that my app can ask via API call over the Internet but I would really like to avoid that.

I'm extremely grateful for any help from the community. Thank you and love you folks! :)

Answer 1

I have found a way/hack to fix this issue.

Function is still the same:

-- solar altitude, azimuth (degrees)
function sunposition(latitude, longitude, time)
    time = time or os.time()
    if type(time) == 'table' then time = os.time(time) end

    local date = os.date('*t', time)
    local timezone = (os.time(date) - os.time(os.date('!*t', time))) / 3600
    if date.isdst then timezone = timezone + 1 end

    local utcdate = os.date('*t', time - timezone * 3600)
    local latrad = math.rad(latitude)
    local fd = (utcdate.hour + utcdate.min / 60 + utcdate.sec / 3600) / 24
    local g = (2 * math.pi / 365.25) * (utcdate.yday + fd)
    local d = math.rad(0.396372 - 22.91327 * math.cos(g) + 4.02543 * math.sin(g) - 0.387205 * math.cos(2 * g)
      + 0.051967 * math.sin(2 * g) - 0.154527 * math.cos(3 * g) + 0.084798 * math.sin(3 * g))
    local t = math.rad(0.004297 + 0.107029 * math.cos(g) - 1.837877 * math.sin(g)
      - 0.837378 * math.cos(2 * g) - 2.340475 * math.sin(2 * g))
    local sha = 2 * math.pi * (fd - 0.5) + t + math.rad(longitude)

    local sza = math.acos(math.sin(latrad) * math.sin(d) + math.cos(latrad) * math.cos(d) * math.cos(sha))
    local saa = math.acos((math.sin(d) - math.sin(latrad) * math.cos(sza)) / (math.cos(latrad) * math.sin(sza)))

    return 90 - math.deg(sza), math.deg(saa)
end

The added code that fixed the issue:

function getSunPos(lat, long, time)
    findTime = {}
    findTime.hour, findTime.min = time.hour, time.min
    fixedAzimuthLast, fixedAzimuth = 0, 0
    for i=0,23 do
        for j=0,59 do
            time.hour, time.min = i, j
            local altitude, azimuth = sunposition(lat, long, time)
            -- fix azimuth
            if fixedAzimuthLast < azimuth then 
                fixedAzimuthLast = azimuth
                fixedAzimuth = fixedAzimuthLast
            else
                fixedAzimuth = fixedAzimuthLast + (180 - azimuth)
            end
            -- find azimuth at target time
            if findTime.hour == i and findTime.min == j then
                -- final result
                return altitude, fixedAzimuth
            end
        end
    end
end

And finally to get the correct result:

lat, long = 45.327063, 14.442176
altitude, azimuth = getSunPos(lat, long, os.date('*t', os.time()))

That is it. I would be happier with the complete function that does the math correctly but this will suffice. It works and was tested on 3 locations globally.

Answer 2

Arccos of an angle equals to 360-angle as their cosine values is equal. You can simply return 360-angle.