Sunday, April 8, 2007

Sunrise Service for One

As is rraditional, I was up before sunrise.  I wasn't sure when sunrise would be, so I went to the courtyard behind the old folks home.  It was just about dawn.

I took the gift card I had received at Christmas, I scootered to Starbucks.  There with gift coffee in hand I greeted the sunrise.

No Hot Cross Buns this Easter

Figuring the time of sunrise is an art.  The time that the sun appears over the horizon is different everywhere, depending on your lattitude and longitude.  Time zones are an hour wide...that is, if the sun appears at 7 am on the Eastern edge of a time zone, by the time reaches the western edge of the zone, it is an hour later, 8 am.

Furthermore, the farther north you are, the earlier the sunrise.  The sun is up at midnight at the north pole.  The higher lattitudes have longer days.  I was astounded by the sun coming up before 4 am in England during WWII.  (And they were on DOUBLE DAYLIGHT time...clock advanced two hours ahead of Sun time.)

The notion that we need a world-wide time is important. Since the time is different in every community, according to the sun, we keep track of world wide events with UT, Universal Time. Universal Time is the time kept Greenwich, England. Why Greenwich?  Why not, and that's where the Royal Observatory was located.

It is now 8:52 AM in Merced, CA.  What is the Greenwich meann time.UT?  I have NO IDEA. 

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

In checking UT out of curiosity, I inadvertantly set my computer to UT.  It is 4:04 PM.  I think I will leave it that way for a while.

Anonymous said...

Happy Easter, Chuck

Anonymous said...

YUM...Starbucks sounds wonderful this morning!!! Was it as good as it sounds? Have a great day! It started out wonderfully!!
Jackie

Anonymous said...

Hope you are having a nice Easter Chuck. Paula

Anonymous said...

The train industry started the time zones in the usa.
Hope you had a great Easter?

Anonymous said...

Glad you started off your day well with a nice Starbucks.  Hope that the breakfast crew turned up too.  Well, if you are reading this as the comment arrives it is 00:38 here in the UK! Hugs, Terry x

Anonymous said...

Chuck,
You are one of the smartest men that I have ever known!
Glad you were able to watch the sunrise....Happy Easter, Chuck.
love ya,
carlene