Tangled Branches: Cultivated
happenings in and around my zone 6b gardens in northern Virginia and in central Virginia
Saturday, December 08, 2007
Earliest Sunset and Cool Software
Later sunsets starting tomorrow!
Around this time of year I'm intensely interested in the motions of the stars and planets - most particularly the Big Star without which none of us would be gardening. It's only a couple of weeks until the winter solstice and longer days, but nature is kind (sometimes) and provides us with longer afternoons even before the solstice. I thought I knew when the earliest sunset of the year occurs, and that it occurs about December 8, but that turns out to be true only if you are located at about 40 degrees N latitude. For those further north, who I'm sure would be even happier to have longer afternoons, you'll have to wait a few more days. For those further south, you're enjoying later sunsets already.
I've recently discovered some amazing software. It's easily the most beautiful astronomy desktop program I've ever seen. So it costs big bucks, right? Wrong. It's free. And open source. My only complaint, and it's not that big a deal to me, is that it's a wee bit programmer-y. If you're running it on Windows, you'll see something that looks like a DOS window open and close before the program itself opens, and once the program is open the controls are not quite intuitive (to me). There's a basic control bar at the bottom of the screen, but certain functions require keyboard commands, and you have to remember what those are, or open the help screen for a list. But, hey, you can't beat the price, and did I mention that the display is beautiful? If you're even the least bit curious about the stars and planets, go to stellarium.org and check it out.
Labels: astronomy
4 Comments:
Exquisite sunset picture! Your post is a first for me: a garden blog post about astronomy. My spouse is the family astronomer, so he appreciates your tip too!
Weeping Sore: (Yours is an attention-getting user name if I ever saw one.) Well...we northerners have to keep ourselves occupied during the winter. So I watch the birds and the sky and study moss and lichens and read seed catalogs and wait for spring. It's raining again this morning, but at least it isn't snow.
Hmmmm, even though I still have bulbs to plant, I don't want rain now...we have more than a foot of snow at present and it will make an ungawdly mess if it rains off rather than gently melting. I love your winter occupying activities. I have a new book (I get sent books because I'm a reviewer for our provincial newspaper, among other places) called Kaleidoscope Sky that I'm quite smitten with and expect to learn a lot from. Explains many sky phenomena.
Jodi: We're in our 3rd? 4th? day of rain here. Not all-day rain luckily. Last week's snow was mostly gone by Saturday. I still have bulbs to plant too - trying to find the intersection of time and weather to get that done. Kaleidoscope Sky sounds like an interesting book, and a catchy name too - it took me a minute or two to get it. I hope you write something about it after you've finished it.
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