Steve,
Given your awareness of the sky you have probably noticed something that remarkably few people have noticed. While they HAVE noticed that the sunset/rise moves N and south along the horizon in spring and fall, Few have noticed that the moon makes that same trip in a month. Wise people have attempted to explain this with me using a beachball, an orange a grape and a floodlight, but the explanation still hasn’t taken. Other wise people have tried to assure me that rotating around something is precisely the same as being rotated around, if you happen to be tilted. But I still can’t make it work.
Nick
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2012 1:19 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Winter Solstice Sunrise
Nick -
Nice thing to notice...
My wife and I live very much by the sun, but not so much by the clock, so while I have occasionally noticed artifacts of the complex relation between sun, earth axial tilt, earth orbit, I had not (until you sent this) recognized the implications so bluntly. I had always chalked these anomolies up to the "flatness" of the top of the sine wave without regard to the "tilt".
I often notice when my (active air) solar panels on my roof start and stop which I take to be a rough measure of the altitude and azimuth of the sun, based on time of day and year. It is also, unfortunately, also a function of how clear the sky is, how cold the day is, how cold the night before was, and how windy it is. I had never factored in (intuitively or formally) the phenomena you just pointed out...
As a child, I remember being fascinated not only by the many wonderful destinations around the globe, but also the annotations such as the longitude and lattitude lines... the Analemma of course, was the most puzzling. I did not learn trigonometry until much later but did see a lissajous figure on an oscilliscope quite early, and assumed the two had something in common (Lissajous and Analemma) and guessed it was somehow the combination of the earth's orbit and tilt. I'm still puzzling a bit about the lemniscate of bernoulli which might "just" be what a lissajous becomes when working with an elliptical orbit?
Thanks for the early Christmas Present. One of my fields of play (for pay) these days is with Planetaria which puts me in the position of wanting/needing to be more familiar with items astronomical.
For some good first person synthetic experience at your desktop, I recommend "Stellarium". I'm working with one of the (open source) developers who is trying to make it Archaeologically accurate over millenia... currently it is only good for a fraction of that. So if you want to see the position of the stars on Jesus' birthday (or crucifixion), you might have to wait a few more months to have it be accurate!
- Steve
My favorite seasonal marker is December 7, when the AFTERNOONS start getting longer. The MORNINGS don't start getting longer until January 4th or so. On December 21 ... the solstice .... the mornings start getting longer faster than the afternoons continue to get shorter. Since I am not a MORNING person, I celebrate December 7th as the first sign of spring.
I assume that somebody on this list can explain why this is the case. I used to watch the sun set every afternoon from the corner chair at the old Ohori's and the setting sun does this odd little dance during the month of December. If I remember correctly, the plane of the setting sun sinks steadily until December 7th, and then remains pretty much the same through December. But the sun arrives along its path later and later, thus prolonging the afternoon as December wears on. I think it has to do with the analemma..
It explains the feeling that you get shortly after Christmas that the afternoons are already a bit longer. Actually, they are by then.
Nick
-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of glen e. p. ropella
Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2012 10:18 AM
To: Friam Friam
Subject: [FRIAM] Winter Solstice Sunrise
http://www.nps.gov/chcu/planyourvisit/event-details.htm?eventID=521654-452862
12/21/2012
Location: Kin Kletso | Map
Time: 7:00 AM to 7:30 AM
Fee Information: Free with Paid $8 entrance fee Contact Name: Visitor Center Contact
Email: e-mail us Contact
Phone Number: 505-786-7014
Join Ranger Cornucopia at Kin Kletso to view a winter solstice marker.
Park gates will open at 6:00 am. Park at Pueblo del Arroyo and walk to Kin Kletso. When the parking lot fills, visitors will park at Pueblo Bonito.
--
glen e. p. ropella, 971-255-2847, http://tempusdictum.com
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