March Equinox 2012

Today's the day where spring officially begins in the Northern Hemisphere. Today, the earth's axis is perpendicular to the sun. The sun shines directly on the Equator where your GPS shows 0°N. Day and night are almost exactly the same length, and the sun rises exactly in the east and sets directly in the west on this day.

Read more about it at http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/march-equinox.html

Spring Equinox 2012

Today, 20 March 2012 is the Spring Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere, and Autumn Equinox in the Southern Hemisphere. The sun rises exactly in the East at 90° and sets exactly in the West at 270°. Where I am in Kuala Lumpur, the sun will be near zenith at 1:21 pm at 87° above the southern horizon.

The direction of the shadows at sunrise shall indicate the East-West direction. So from what I see in the garden, my front gate is not exactly facing East, it's a couple of degrees towards East by South.

Note that due to the earth's axial tilt, there are only 2 days in a year where the sun rises precisely due east and sets precisely due west.

Sun 90º Overhead in Kuala Lumpur

Today at 1:18 pm, the sun reached its zenith at 90º above the horizon in Kuala Lumpur. At that very moment objects cast no shadow. The following graphic shows the sun path:

Source: http://www.gaisma.com/en/location/kuala-lumpur.html

And from
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/city.html?n=122
for Monday, 28 March 2011:

Sunrise at    07:15    in direction    87°    East    -->
Sunset at    19:22    in direction    273°    West    <--
Duration of day: 12 hours, 7 minutes (10 seconds longer than yesterday)
Sun near zenith at 13:18 at altitude 90° above horizon