Posted on 03/20/2026 2:04:27 PM PDT by MtnClimber
Explanation: The defining astronomical moment of the equinox today is at 14:46 UTC (March 20). That's when the Sun crosses the celestial equator moving north in its yearly journey through planet Earth's sky, marking the beginning of spring for our fair planet in the northern hemisphere and fall in the southern hemisphere. Then, day and night are nearly equal around the globe. In fact, both day and nighttime exposures from a spring equinox at the Observatorio del Teide in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, are used in this composited skyscape. Over 1,000 images were taken with a fisheye lens and merged in the ambitious equinox project. The apparent motion of the Sun setting along the celestial equator on the equinox date follows the bright linear, diagonal track from the sequence of daytime exposures taken over 6 hours. After sunset, nighttime exposures recorded startrails, with the celestial equator as a linear track and concentric arcs circling the north celestial pole near Polaris at upper right and the south celestial pole beyond the lower left edge (and below the Teide horizon). The foreground includes the distant Teide volcano peak and the observatory's pyramid-shaped solar laboratory building.
For more detail go to the link and click on the image for a high definition image. You can then move the magnifying glass cursor then click to zoom in and click again to zoom out. When zoomed in you can scan by moving the side bars on the bottom and right side of the image.
🪐 🌟 🌌 🍔
All right! Spring started 6 hours, 26 minutes ago! Yay.
Except we are having a heat dome and it’s 90 degrees here in Silicon Valley
Wowsers
Nothing about Earth tilting on its axis, but states the Sun is “moving north in its yearly journey through planet Earth’s sky”.
Wow.
I’m getting dizzy, LOL!
But, Bring On The SPRING! :)
It’s 66 here in my basement/exposed lower level, much as it is all year.
Fleece wearing country.
Their terms are correct for the apparent relative motion of the sun as it passes through the celestial equatorial plain.
Pretty image!
We were at our North Idaho place until Sunday. Still cold and snow on the ground. Drove to the SF Bay Area on Monday & Tuesday just in time for this huge “high pressure heat dome.”
What a change!
Galileo had a problem with the Vatican saying it was ‘apparent’ the Sun revolved around Earth.
So apparently, the text of the posted story is good.
90 degrees? It's 34 degrees here in Webster (western NY)
Thx!
https://search.brave.com/search?q=analemma&summary=1
A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle
[snip] My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it.
“You appear to be astonished,” he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. “Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it.”
“To forget it!”
“You see,” he explained, “I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.”
“But the Solar System!” I protested.
“What the deuce is it to me?” he interrupted impatiently; “you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.” [/snip]
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