What is a "solar apex"?
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The solar apex is the direction in which the sun is moving. The sun orbits about the center of our galaxy, and so is moving relative to the other stars around it, although due to the vast distances involved we can hardly tell it is moving at all!
The solar apex lies southwest of the star Vega near the constellation Hercules.
Apparently it also has some sort of astrological signifigance, but that is all just bunk.
The place where the sun (during Summer months up North) reaches it's highest point...it's always on the longest day of Summer...and the day is celebrated ALL OVER Norway.
People party all through the night...if I remember the day well enough...the sun never actually set...it kind of dipped just below the horizon and popped back up again.
Wouldn't you know that dip below the horizon is when all the bars buy a round of drinks.
awesome party
from what i remember...
of course they also celebrate jumping into the fjords to freshen up...I remember that.
The solar apex, or the Apex of the Sun's Way, refers to the direction that the Sun travels through space. This is not to be confused with the Sun's apparent motion through the constellations of the zodiac, which is illusory -- this supposed motion is actually caused by the Earth revolving around the Sun.
It is the "real" direction that the Sun is moving through "local" interstellar space. Since the sun's path is inclined about 25 degrees to the plane of the galaxy, we appear to be headed toward a region in the constellation of Hercules near its border with Lyra (Solar Apex).
Relative to the average motion of the most commonly measured nearby stars, the sun moves with a speed of about 16.5 kilometers per second, or nearly 50 light-years per million years.
Note that the sun's motion relative to the local stellar neighborhood should not be confused with its movement around the center of the galaxy, since the whole solar neighborhood (including the sun) orbits the galactic center once every 250 million years.
Just as we do not include the earth's velocity around the sun when calculating the speed of an airplane (we are only interested in the ground-speed), astronomers do not include the sun's galactic orbital velocity when describing its local motion.
And if this seems abit confusing, imagine that you are on a merry-go-round on a flat-bed truck driving around the deck of a large ship (like a super-tanker) at sea sailing amongst a fleet of ships. The motion/direction of your ship compared to the other ships is the solar apex.
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