winter solstice eve photos

Midwinter solstice day is a rainy one here: no sunrise gap or cloud silver lining! It doesn’t really matter if you’re just appreciating the views at their most ideal sunrise times for mistYmuse. It only matters if you’ve just got this day to appreciate them, and in the old days particularly if you’ve got a temple built for such days, where the sun would enter a passageway after rising/setting on a solstice or equinox.

Yesterday was much better than expected, with the sun seeming to explode into light like a supernova in space or a lighthouse on Earth. Funnily enough, I’d been discussing lighthouses the previous day on another site (Willow Croft), and had been thinking the revolving light is my favourite part of them. Yesterday’s sunrise light wasn’t revolving, but its looks are similar.

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The sky also cleared in the evening so the conjunction was visible. It was good to see for history, but wasn’t as spectacular as earlier in the year for me, when it was nearer, bigger and brighter. Mars is quite sparkly now overhead, while the Orion constellation is also big and bright.

Anyway, midwinter is mostly a celebration of endurance and passing, that winter is half over, and it will start getting lighter now. I hope the first month of mistYmuse has helped you reach this point happily, and that you can now look forward to spring thinking it isn’t too far away, with Christmas timed well to celebrate the end of the first half.

MOON LANDING MISTYMUSE

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Momentous mistYmuse moments this morning as the band of pinky orange merging with forest trees on the horizon inspired me to start posting live on Facebook, rather than waiting to the end as previously. To me, it felt like a moon landing moment (I can’t remember that, although I was alive!), so I took up that commentary as I posted: lift-off, parting (usually between space ship parts for them, land and sky for sun/me) and mission accomplished when the sun docked above the gap.

One small step for sun, one giant leap for mYmkind!

Forest sunrise, venus surprise

Yesterday’s sunrise lived up to expectations:

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There was also a bonus beforehand, as Venus (I think, was due in sky at that time; shame, could claim UFO otherwise!) shone brightly before the sun rose in the same direction:

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Today’s forecast wasn’t good, but there was still a sun gap on the horizon, like in my silver lining cloud adaptation with the sky shining pinky orange under mostly cloud.

midwinter day week away

A week before midwinter’s day and the weather forecast for a clear morning was on the button, providing the inspiration and planning for these photos. That’s not to say it was all polished and professional. A late sleep meant I was lucky (no alarm clock!) to wake this morning at 7.50, just in time for the start of the sunrise, which I followed until it seemed up and behind cloud at 8.30.

Gaia Sun Fun?

Continuing the theme of the last post, where I wrote of my ‘every sky having a sunrise gap’ adaptation of ‘every cloud has a silver lining’, and being open to Gaia theory (and for the sun being alive too) this morning the sun seemed to hide behind the cloud, just providing a silver (or gold!?) lining. Coincidence? I don’t know, so I’m agnostic. Do I want to believe, like Mulder with UFOs in X-Files? Yes, of course.

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When I Think I’ve Achieved Enough, I Feel Like Giving/Passing Away…

The photo gallery design was also provided by the WordPress programmers; and the camera technology by others; and it was only when I uploaded the photos on a previous post at the start of the month that I noticed they mirrored the pop art design that has become a central theme to this website since the PinkyOrangePurple (inspiring new POP art) twilight colours theme was noticed on the XaW Files travel quest for the greenYgrey world’s Andy Warhol, Andy Wolfhol; whose favourite phrase was ‘wolf not war’!

So my main skill is not creating myself, but noticing and linking the creations of others, with some judgement about choosing, editing and taking the best photos; combining 55 years of experience and knowledge with new technology… and love for sun and nature!

sunrise HALO seven

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Post-sunrise photos from Saturday above.

I happened to be awake this morning, and with a gap between the horizon and sun thought I’d watch out for it. Turned out to be quite good, and a few photos into mistYmuse 20/21 now I thought I’d be a bit artistic, and took some angled photos, like the Nytt Land video below. They’ll be posted soon…

Sun diva star turned up for opening ceremony!

The British sun can be a bit of a diva star, so I didn’t know if it’d turn up for the mistYmuse (most ideal sunrise times – midwinter until spring equinox) 20/21 opening ceremony today, starting four months of sky fun (probably the longest festival in the world!?)… but it did!

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I was reminded of this sunshine on Earth video recently, so thought it was a fitting opening show, after male acts opened and closed last year’s mYm 19/20!

3 Days to go, MYM KNOCKING ON DOOR

What was the Dutch mixologist, Ana Gram, famous for?
DAME MADE EDAM MEAD!

The good news is that sunrises are getting later again this year in November (as seen in the headline screenshot from timeanddate), so mistYmuse (most ideal sunrise times – midwinter until spring equinox) 20/21 is ON!

No travelling, No effort!
More sleep (potentially?)
Later sunrises (weather permitting!)
More mYmories (memories): certainly.

For non-Americans/Thanksgivingers it’s a Thanksgiving replacement and for American Thanksgivingers it’s a warm-up and follow-up, as the mistYmuse party continues until spring!

Winter watching what wild wings
saw on horizon, perched in trees
b4 deciduous leaves decided to leave
following feathered friends.

if you’re going to buy any fantasy fiction books this year, I recommend this one; with free comedy and poetry; and free of fake wokery pokery!:

winter solstice light clocks

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Light clocks ideas using a world to a 12 hour clock face, basically divided by the north and south hemispheres. The original one has numbers around it, but going anti-clockwise, as the Earth goes around the sun. It has a 0-6 measurement.

However, then I thought that some light even gets to the poles in mid-winter, so I thought I’d use a 12 measurement system, with 3 the lowest rating.

I couldn’t see anything like it online, so is it original… and worth thinking about? Or has it been thought about, but not been considered worthy?

Planet Earth Orbit of Sun: Where We Are Now!

It’s common for people who are geographically lost to exclaim ‘Where in the world are we!?’, but less common to wonder where in the solar system (everything that circles our sun due to its gravity) we are. If you understand how our solar system works you will understand why we see the sun when we do, and why our night skies are different throughout the year.

Online Orrery, Where Are We?

I wondered about this question a few weeks ago, perhaps prompted by the opening of mistYmuse 2019/20 (#mYm2019), and found this great online orrery showing where our planet currently is, and where it is a month either side.

Our planet Earth is at the top of the ‘solar system clock face’ now, as if the end of our year is like the end of an hour, but we are going anti-clockwise!

So each night (when we are facing away from the sun, in whatever part of the planet we are, with each rotation of our Earth taking a day) we look out at the ‘northern night sky’.

Then, when the planet spins us around to face the sun again at different times (the morning sunrise), we face ‘south’ again. The way we see the sun at different locations, south/east to north/west, can be shown by these sunrise times at the moment, that are roughly on the same latitude, with their times converted to GMT for clarity (Vilnius is two hours ahead in their time, and Copenhagen one):

Vilnius 6.41, Copenhagen 7.37, Leeds 8.22, Belfast 8.45

In six months we’ll be at the opposite side of the sun, and so will have a better view of our Milky Way galaxy, as our solar system is on the north-west edge of it, so we have a better view of it when we are ‘south’ of the sun. That was featured in the Sky at Night review of the year (only available in UK).

My latest books:

 

Winter Solstice Muse Photos and Philosophy

The future is
back again…
to a time before
deforestation began!

The muse delivered the above after a pulsating sunrise this morning, and a misty day yesterday, three weeks into mistYmuse 2019/20 (#mYm2019), with the Winter Solstice only four days away. As with snow often not falling on Christmas Day, but other days either side of it, a sunrise like this cannot be guaranteed on the 22nd!: