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Happy Equinox!

There is not really an equal amount of day and night, though. Because twilight. (The picture represents how wide a band twilight really is).

Kind of an interesting article. Apparently, there are two types of twilight. Civil twilight is when the sun is 6 degrees or less below the horizon and you can carry on doing normal daylight things. Nautical twilight is when the sea becomes difficult to make out, usually when the sun is 12 degrees below the horizon. At 18 degrees below the horizon, it am dark.

Also, it isn’t really dark six months of the year at the poles. Because twilight.

Oh, and people? Summer’s gone. Bend over!

Comments


Comment from ExpressoBold
Time: September 21, 2021, 8:29 pm

How did youse guys get to autumnal equinox today and we get there tomorrow afternoon?

https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/@2656161


Comment from Mark Matis
Time: September 21, 2021, 9:01 pm

Because they drink warm beer, ExpressoBold!


Comment from Armybrat
Time: September 21, 2021, 9:39 pm

I’ve spent most of my adult life north of the Mason-Dixon Line. I hate when mums show up in the plant nurseries. It means the nights become sooooo long and the days tooooo short. I’ve spent most of my adult life going to work in the dark and coming home in the dark. Went months without seeing a ray of sunshine. And that is why I now live in sunny Florida! I’ll hardly notice the shorter days and if I do it will be on the way home from the beach.


Comment from Mitch
Time: September 21, 2021, 9:44 pm

Thank goodness summer is over. I hate that season with the white-hot hate of a Las Vegas summer. Give me my crisp Autumn temps and sweatpants back. It’s still near 100 degrees out here.


Comment from drew458
Time: September 21, 2021, 9:47 pm

A pilot will tell you that darkness rises from the land, and dawn falls from the sky. Ok, you’ll have to find a poetic pilot to hear this, but it’s still true.


Comment from QuasiModo
Time: September 21, 2021, 9:52 pm

@Mitch: I also love the fall and winter the best…goodbye and good riddance to the stinking heat and humidity of the summer, yayyy! 🙂


Comment from Armybrat
Time: September 21, 2021, 10:21 pm

@mitch…I confess that I LOVE fall in New England. Neon colors, crisp apples, the smell of logs in the fireplace. After that 3 weeks it’s just cold, wet and dark. And that lasts 8 months. Trust me when I say that 3 weeks of bliss ain’t worth the 8+mo ths of miserableness.


Comment from Mitch
Time: September 21, 2021, 10:46 pm

I hear you Armybrat. I used to live in Maryland as a kid. Yeah, we got tired of winter too back then. But I’ve been living in this God-forsaken desert for 30 years. I WANT OUT. Florida is our likely destination. Yes, I know what summer is like in Florida too.


Comment from durnedyankee
Time: September 21, 2021, 11:12 pm

There’s always Arkansas. They’ve relaxed the rules about having to marry your sister.

😉


Comment from Armybrat
Time: September 21, 2021, 11:25 pm

@Mitch…Maryland was well south of where I lived most of the last 20 years…positively tropical!! My folks and oldest sister live in the desert southwest. Stunningly beautiful country but not my cup of tea. I moved south to sunny FL a year ago. I live (I believe) just north of Uncle Al. We’re on the gulf coast of FL. This was my 31st move in my (at the time) 57 years. I ain’t moving again!


Comment from Armybrat
Time: September 21, 2021, 11:28 pm

@durnedyankee- one of my nieces lives in northeastern Arkansas. Beautiful part of the country. Reminds me a lot of eastern PA without all the Philly assholes.


Comment from Some Vegetable
Time: September 22, 2021, 12:31 am

You equinox is TODAY, Tuesday, September 21st??

The official party line here in the U.S. is:

“The 2021 fall equinox will take place on Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 3:21 p.m. Eastern”

Hmmmm……

And here in Dallas Texas, the ‘true equinox’ will fall on 26 September this year when sunrise will be at 7:18 am and the sunset will be at 7:17 pm, for a day length of 11:59:47.

I am sure that all this confusion and deviation is significant somehow …perhaps some government plot, like when they forcibly changed us from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar and stole 11 days from us?

Bastids. They’s always up to sumpthin’!

https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Give-us-our-eleven-days/


Comment from durnedyankee
Time: September 22, 2021, 11:58 am

@Armybrat – up around Prairie Grove and Walmartville is also very nice.

The sister thing was a cheap shot because it’s expected coming from Texas 🙂

I’ve mostly found, several East Coast exceptions not withstanding, that if you’re polite and pleasant most people tend to follow suit, even up Boston way.

@Someveg – the 11 days? Yus, a cheap Illuminati plot to avoid paying the peasants their full yearly salary that year.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 22, 2021, 6:20 pm

Eh, there’s always some quibbling about whether the equinox is the 21st or 22nd. I’m too lazy to look it up, so I always observe it on the 21st. Let’s consider it a twilight period.


Comment from AliceH
Time: September 22, 2021, 7:44 pm

I think civil sunset became a thing in WWII, being the time all windows should be blacked out and any outdoor lights shut off. Read that in a murder mystery, I think, but the official daily calendar/timetable was vital to solving the case.


Comment from Cantharkmycry
Time: September 22, 2021, 11:26 pm

Sweas: My father was born on March 21, my mother on September 21. And my father loved the line from the Just So Stories about the equinoxes preceding according to precedent. So in my family, and thus for me, the equinoxes are on the 21st, and that’s that. 🙂


Comment from BJM
Time: September 23, 2021, 3:38 pm

Gwan to be 94 today, so summer ain’t done with us yet either. I let the native wild sunflowers take over the veggie garden so it’s has a blousey charm that the cats, in particular, are enjoying.

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