[Accrs] Time - Sunrise, sunset

[Alameda County Central Railroad Society]

This is one of my favorite subjects and I've used this site for a long time. One of my other hobbies is amateur astronomy. I have two big telescopes and still go out star gazing from time to time. Knowing when the actual sunset occurs is a big part of planning for the evening.

As this article points out, while Dec. 21st is technically the day of the "shortest" amount of sunlight, it isn't the day of the earliest sunset or the latest sunrise. For this season, the earliest sunset occurred on about December 6th, 2016 and has been getting later ever since that date (by only a minute or so each day). The latest sunrise will be tomorrow on Jan. 5th and then will be getting earlier each day. In fact, today, Jan. 4th, the Earth is the closest to the sun (called Perihelion or Perigee in our orbit). All this occurs because of our Earth's elliptical orbit, the wobble of the Earth's axis, and several other factors.

Here's a nice table and graph for this area of the various times for all this: https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/usa/san-jose

Is anyone else a star watching enthusiast?

-Wayne


-----Original Message-----
From: Accrs [mailto:accrs-bounces at mail.accrs.org] On Behalf Of Alameda County Central Railroad Society
Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2017 7:12 AM
Subject: [Accrs] Time - Sunrise, sunset

Message From: Dean & Margaret Lewis  lewis2 at earthlink.net



Here is something most people don't know.

https://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/equation-of-time.html

Down just a little way is the "Tale of Two Cities".   Shows pretty much 
what to look for.

Dean
_______________________________________________
Accrs mailing list
Accrs at mail.accrs.org
https://mail.accrs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/accrs