a few things for January 2016

2nd January sees the Earth at perihelion – the closest point to the Sun in its orbit. While it might make a little difference to the weather, that difference is not so much as the effect that day and night and that the seasons have.

The night 3rd/4th sees the maximum of the Quadrantid meteor showers (shooting stars) and should be reasonably visible round about midnight after which the waning Moon appears.

Mercury might be visible just before sunset at the beginning of the month but it reappears in the dawn sky at the end of the month.

I sometimes complain about the light pollution which spoils our view of the night sky in our neck of the woods. However, it is worth remembering that it takes some time for our eyes to adapt to low light levels – typically about 20 minutes to get our ‘night vision’. So we need not give up too quickly. Wrap up warm and try to find a sheltered spot out of any wind and not lit by street lamps or security lights and a be prepared to be patient. Of course, if it is cloudy, no amount of human night vision is going to make much difference!

If I told you that for some time now the Earth has been slowing down in its orbit…

… would you be concerned?
Well, it is true that, as I write, the Earth has been slowing down measurably. Although we have had the solstice on 21st June, the time of sunset (measured to the nearest minute) hereabouts will stay the same for several days to come.
Does that worry you?
Well, it shouldn’t as this is what happens around this time every year. The Earth goes round the Sun but its orbit is not a perfect circle. The orbit is an ellipse – in this instance a slightly stretched circle so that it has length and width not a simple diameter. This means that when the Earth is a little closer to the sun it moves a little bit faster because the pull of the Sun’s gravity is a bit stronger (this happens in January). Meanwhile at the other end of the year (now-ish) the earth is that little bit further away from the sun , the pull is a little bit less so the speed of the earth is a little bit slower.

This year aphelion (the place in the orbit when the Earth is furthest from the sun) will be on 6th July. After that it’s downhill all the way to December.

You can read a bit more on Wikipedia about the Earth’s orbit here.

When the sun smiles

Apparently some religious leader is preaching that last Friday’s solar eclipse was a warning sent from God to the countries of Western Europe that were in its shadow. Much as I believe in God as creator of the universe and follow his Son Jesus Christ, I found that preacher’s comments a little disturbing.

Certainly the eclipse may evoke feelings of wonder, curiosity, humility or even fear – they are unusual, even if we do have a scientific explanation for them. And if we take the eclipse as an occasion to reflect on human fragility and mortality, all well and good. But a sign from God? Maybe. A specific message for a specific time and place? Too much like astrology for my liking, given that we can predict the next such event years in advance (2026 for a partial solar eclipse and 2090 for a total one visible from the UK, apparently. I haven’t done the calculations myself so I am taking this on trust.)

In the meantime here are a selection of our photos from last Friday, which we will update as and when any others are sent in.

 

nearly an hour after “first contact”

a bit of a smile

nearly gone

taken with a Pentax digital SLR, no special filters – only possible because the cloudiness was just right