Friday, August 10, 2007

It's official. We have darkness.

After almost 2 months of 24hr daylight, we finally have darkness. A whole hour of it and some civil twilight on either side. (The Man informed me that civil twilight occurs when the sun dips below the horizon but doesn't descend more than 6 degrees.)

Do check out this site. It provides not only astronomical information for your locale but for any others you might be interested in. The best part of it is at the bottom of the page (after choosing stargazing and your city of interest) where the earth's shadow is shown. If you check in occasionally throughout the day you can watch it slowly progressing around the globe.

I copied this image taken at 8AM my time this morning.


It's a bit astonishing how heavily populated (and artificially lit) areas show up while they are in complete darkness. Look how large cities in southeast Asia show up! Until just recently the top of that shadow was just passing below where The Man and I live. Now it's brushing by ever so slightly and more so each day. I've also noticed that Antarctica is finally getting some sun and is progressing to longer and longer days as ours shorten.

A few months from now and I'll be posting photos of the aurora borealis taken during the (dark) daytime hours.

No comments: