Winter Solstice

[ajax]

So today, 21 June, is the shortest day for us in the south.

Down here in Cape Town, winter mornings are really dark. Because we are more south and more west than you guys up in the north western parts of SA the sun only rises (officially) at 07h51. Here where I am, Stellenbosch, you're lucky to see the sun at 9am. Not very nice if your house is very cold and you rely on the early morning sun to warm up.

Of course, the converse is also true - being more south and more west means our summer evenings are long with the sun setting only at 20h00 at the height of summer. Very nice if you come back from work at 18h00 and there's still 2 hours left for a few sets of tennis (if the South Easter doesn't blow you away of course, lol)

Spare a thought though for the guys in Barrow Alaska. They must be having some serious insomnia right now. Look at the time this picture was taken, yes am that is. I saved that image 2 days ago. The live webcam is here

Last month there was a movie on DSTV, "30 Days of Night" shot in Barrow about vampires coming out during their winter time where the sun doesn't rise for several weeks in a row.

Have any of you been to any lands of "mignight sun?"

 

[bwana]

So today, 21 June, is the shortest day for us in the south.

Down here in Cape Town, winter mornings are really dark. Because we are more south and more west than you guys up in the north western parts of SA the sun only rises (officially) at 07h51. Here where I am, Stellenbosch, you're lucky to see the sun at 9am. Not very nice if your house is very cold and you rely on the early morning sun to warm up.

Of course, the converse is also true - being more south and more west means our summer evenings are long with the sun setting only at 20h00 at the height of summer. Very nice if you come back from work at 18h00 and there's still 2 hours left for a few sets of tennis (if the South Easter doesn't blow you away of course, lol)

Spare a thought though for the guys in Barrow Alaska. They must be having some serious insomnia right now. Look at the time this picture was taken, yes am that is. I saved that image 2 days ago. The live webcam is here

Last month there was a movie on DSTV, "30 Days of Night" shot in Barrow about vampires coming out during their winter time where the sun doesn't rise for several weeks in a row.

Have any of you been to any lands of "mignight sun?"

It looks like it was shot exclusively in New Zealand - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0389722/locations

Another film to look out for is Insomnia.

 

[elysian]

Spare a thought though for the guys in Barrow Alaska. They must be having some serious insomnia right now. Look at the time this picture was taken, yes am that is. I saved that image 2 days ago. The live webcam is here

Must suck over there. I probably wouldn't be able to handle the winters - when it's dark all the time. You could block the light coming into your house in summer, but can't do much about the lack of natural light outside.

 

[ajax]

Something I find interesting is that when we have the summer solstice, 21/22 December, the sun is not rising or setting at its earliest/latest. The earliest sunrise is at 05h28 at the beginning of December and the latest sunset is at 20h00 at the end of December, but 21 December is still the longest day.

I would have thought that at the Solstice the sun is at its furthest position south, so the sunset/sunrise should be at their extremes?
EDIT: This "effect" seems to be less pronounced at the Winter Solstice.