Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Thursday, December 20th.  The sun will rise at 8:15.  It’ll be up for 8 hours and 48 minutes, setting at 5:04.   The moon, at first quarter today, will set at 1:51 tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow morning at 6:12 a.m. The sun will pass through the point where is appears the farthest south.  We call it the winter solstice, or winter sun stand still.  If you are measuring the shadow of the sun cast by a stick at noon, tomorrow will be the date of the longest noon time shadow.  The ancients, who were not too sure the sun would come back partied big time as the sun stopped the southern progress and began to head back north.  This was and is a big festival time featuring lots of lights, be it candles, torches, the burning of the yule log and Christmas lights.  For those in the southern hemisphere they are celebrating the summer solstice.  In any case our winter is the shortest season.

Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.  They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Noon in Michigan at the winter solstice. Created using Celestia.

To keep the earth large enough, I’ve had to move in to 10 earth radii, so Michigan at the top is a bit closer to the limb than it is to the sun.  The vantage point is over the Tropic of Capricorn, 23 1/2 degrees south latitude.  The short daylight hours and low sun angle hasn’t caught up to us yet.  The coldest days are expected in January.