A Teacher’s Journey to Creating an Infinity Sun

Tracking the sun’s position at the same time of day for a year produces what is known as an analemma. It’s essentially a figure-eight shape made by shadows the sun casts over the course of a year. Chemistry teacher Mark Cralen embarked on a journey of science, engineering and math by constructing one this past August.

Mr. Cralen started his analemma blog by spending months looking for the perfect spot to capture the sun’s shadow. After setting up a wooden frame and tarp to the roof of his friend’s workshop, situated up the road from OMSI, he used a stencil made from the back of a notebook to mark the sun’s shadow on the tarp. The shadow is cast from a piece of wood on the frame.

After doing the math, Cralen decided 2 p.m. was the best time to collect the data. He made the first dot on August 1st, 2025. He took pictures every five to 13 days showing the progress of the analemma, and with it he commented on the successes and struggles.

In his blog, Mr. Cralen noted mathematical errors in setting up the tarp and frame as well as cloudy weather making it difficult to get a good shadow. One notable “aha” moment occurred when he realized that Daylight Savings Time had thrown off his calculations. Ever the scientist, these challenges did not stop him from persisting.

“The Analemma project I'm working on checks a lot of boxes for me to keep me interested,” Mr. Cralen explains. “There are so many elements of it that seem super simple but express things that are really complicated.”

As of this writing, the curve at the top part of the figure 8 is finally taking shape. As Mr. Cralen continues his analemma blog, he encourages students to follow along with it here.