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I know solstice is supposed to be the longest day of the year, and that's great and all, but is it also the darkest night of the year? The stars have been really vivid the past few nights. Sometimes I wonder if it's related to weather and dust in the atmosphere. I got to thinking, though, that due to solstice and the tilt of the earth's axis, it's also the time when we are pointed the most 'away' from the sun.
We saw about 5 shooting stars last night in less than a half hour.
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According to
http://www.calendar-365.com/moon/current...phase.html only 10% of the moon is visible, and as the moon is the greatest source of natural light at night, I'm guessing it has more to do with moon phase than summer solstice.
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Agree. No moon and clear summer skies have made the starshow spectacular of late. Shooting stars, planets, and satellites visible, too. The other night someone tried to point out Pluto (the former planet, not the delightful Disney character --how the tiny have fallen). I didn't really think you could see Pluto with the naked eye, but I was told you can. Anyway, I've been looking up.
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The summer solstice is when we, in the northern hemisphere, are pointed the most towards the sun. That is why it is the longest day. The winter solstice is when we are pointed away from the sun.
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Yes, but the earth spins every 24 hours, so even during the solstice we point away from the sun. My point is that we point the most directly away (and towards) the sun during the solstice.
I saw the Milky Way again last night, and basically a whole lot of stars - another really clear night.
Kelena - a few months back we saw Jupiter in the west, Mars directly above, and Saturn to the east. I felt like I could see the shape if the solar system. Truly amazing!
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It is kind of self-centric to say "we are pointing at the sun". The seasons are mainly due to the axis of rotation tilting toward or away from the sun, so now, the northern hemisphere is in summer and the southern hemisphere is in winter. The planet is furthest from the sun during the northern hemisphere summer (axis tilt toward sun) and closest during the northern hemisphere winter (axis tilt away from sun) The darkness is from heading into a new moon later this week. The lack of street lights make this more dramatic here. There was a report awhile back when there was a power outage in LA and 911 was getting a flurry of panic UFO calls. When the police went out, it turned out people were calling in the Milky Way as a UFO because they had never seen it before. As the world turns.
"This island Hawaii on this island Earth"
*Japanese tourist on bus through Pahoa, "Is this still America?*
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As indicated above, the phase of the moon, along with clear skies has provided the night star show.
This morning, as daylight was beginning and well before the sun appeared on the horizon, a thin slice of moon was visible low in the east, with a planet (Jupiter?) shining just above it.
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i missed the moon this morning. by the time i got up the sun was already up, and the moon was nowhere to be seen. love those crescent moon rise/sets!
i guess on further thought, 'we' (hawaii) are not pointed directly away from the sun at night during the summer solstice. i've seen some shows recently about the ISS and views from space, as well as the earth from space webcam, that got me really thinking about all of this.
so is there any significance of the summer solstice beyond it being the longest day? are there any stars visible in the northern sky that aren't visible at non-summer times of the year? it seems that the southern sky has way more stars than the northern sky, that's a pretty qualitative assessment though.
