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It is quite difficult to visualize and it took me a long time to "get it".

The path of the sun's annual motion relative to the stars is determined solely by my physical progress in orbit around the sun. A planet's axial tilt only changes the 'direction' I'm looking in and thus the reference point of my celestial coordinate system. The sun's path will always be a great circle on that celestial sphere (and always the same relative to the fixed background stars) regardless of which reference frame I choose. I think this is enough to surmise that the sun's angular speed on the celestial sphere is constant regardless of axial tilt (assuming a perfectly circular orbit).

Taken to an extreme, imagine a planet with 90° tilt -- the sun would move vertically and pass directly over the pole, making a constant 'horizontal' motion literally impossible.

I'm not sure what your tidally locked example is meant to demonstrate, since that's literally what the analemma is -- the path the sun would make in the sky once you subtract a planet's local axial rotation, i.e., tidally locking it to the orbital parent.




Thank you for the further explanation - this has convinced me that it's plausible, though my mind is slow and I still need to think about it to be fully convinced.




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