View Single Post
  #1  
Old December 7th 18, 01:54 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Gerald Kelleher
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,551
Default Sunrise on the Solstice

A myth has grown up around the notion that sunrise continues to occur later after the Solstice.

https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/irel...h=12&year=2018


Natural noon as opposed to clock noon is always symmetrical to sunrise and sunset so the value for daylight length divided by 2 and added to the time of sunrise should be the same from natural noon to sunset.

The total length of daylight is shortest on the December Solstice as it decreases up to then before growing longer after Dec 21st.

There is a problem however that few would spot and it is unfair on society - it gives sunrise to sunrise as exactly 24 hours despite the principle that sunrise to sunrise, noon to noon or sunset to sunset are not 24 hours -

"Here take notice, that the Sun or the Earth passeth the 12. Signes, or makes an entire revolution in the Ecliptick in 365 days, 5 hours 49 min. or there about, and that those days, reckon'd from noon to noon, are of different lenghts; as is known to all that are vers'd in Astronomy." Huygens

https://adcs.home.xs4all.nl/Huygens/06/kort-E.html


I have been fortunate enough to being inside the ancient neolithic monuments at sunrise on the Solstice and daylight still streams through the ancient passageway the same number of days either side of the Solstice before going dark for the rest of the year -

https://www.newgrange.com/winter_solstice.htm

A lot of cheating going on to impress a population which has been severely affected by the mangling of timekeeping and astronomy by a small group of people who exploited the natural intricacies which are part and parcel of astronomical reasoning - it is great if people can get away with it but diminishes astronomy nonetheless.