Depends on which 'above' you're looking from though, right? (edit: that wasn't meant to be obnoxiously rhetorical, just to signal that I might be messing up the

Depends on which 'above' you're looking from though, right? (edit: that wasn't meant to be obnoxiously rhetorical, just to signal that I might be messing up the visualisation myself.) If the planet is rotating around the axis from pole to pole, then from above one pole (or anywhere that side of the equator) the rotation will appear clockwise, from above the other pole it will appear anticlockwise, and from directly above the equator it will just be 'left' or 'right' (or forward or back) depending on your orientation. edit: perhaps from directly above the equator you would still consider the spin to be clockwise or anticlockwise -- but which one would depend on your orientation.