Solar zenith angle and solar azimuth angle—and which one (if either) tells you how high in the sky the sun looks?
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Suppose there is an object in the sky such as the sun or a star. The point directly above you is the “zenith”, and the object is some angle down towards the horizon from the zenith. For the sun that is the solar zenith angle.
To locate that object in the sky you also need another piece of information, since the zenith angle really just describes a circle in the sky. Using north or south as a reference the angle from it to where a circle from the azimuth through the object intersects the horizon is the azimuth angle. For the sun it is the solar azimuth angle.
Basically the azimuth angle tells you how far to turn from the north or south direction, and the zenith angle tells you how far down to look from directly upwards. Adding “solar” in front just tells you the object is the sun.
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