Monday, March 24, 2008

Twilight

I awoke the Sunday after sunset to find patches of clear sky visible through the clouds. The prospect of clear skies, even two days after sunset, was tremendous.

The sun is pretty big, and "sunset" only refers to the moment when its center crosses the horizon, while assuming there is no atmosphere to bend the light. The upshot of that is that part of the sun can appear to linger above the horizon for days after the official sunset.

Through the day, clouds continued to clear, and some amazing colors began to resolve themselves. Opposite the sun (which was still obscured by low clouds circling the horizon), the Earth's shadow was creeping up, a dark blueish-purple band just above the ground. Above that, a swathe of purples and pinks, topped by a nearly full moon.

From DSL, the station was backlit by the mostly-set sun, which threw up a rainbow of colors as a backdrop.


The temperature had soared to a record high, -38C. We haven't seen temperatures like that since station close, and it left us free to take pictures outside for hours, developing admirable eye-frost.

1 comment:

Erik Scheme said...

Hey Keith,

I got the address of your blog from Jane's roommate, Heather. I just wanted to let you know how much I've enjoyed reading it. You are incredibly poetic in your descriptions; so much so that, combined with your beautiful pictures, I can almost feel the frost. I'll keep an eye out for a documentary some day on Discovery HD, written and produced by one Keith Vanderlinde. :)

Erik Scheme