Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Friday, June 21st.  Today the sun will be up for 15 hours and 33 minutes, setting at 9:31.   The moon, 2 days before full, will set at 5:11 tomorrow morning.  Tomorrow the sun will rise at 5:57.

Happy summer.  It began at 1:04 this morning.  The sun is at its highest at noon, well local solar noon that is, which is 1:44 p.m. in the Interlochen Traverse City area. At that time the sun will reach an altitude or angle above the southern horizon of nearly 69 degrees.  If you want to get an idea of the difference between that and the sun at the winter solstice, check out the moon tonight.  It is almost to the point in the sky where the sun was at the winter solstice.  Notice how low it is in the sky, and how few hours it is up.  The cause is the tilt of the earth’s axis of 23 and a half degrees.  It gives us a 47 degree span of altitudes of the sun over the year.  It is not the sun’s distance that causes seasons, as we’ll see next month.

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

Addendum

Comparing the sun’s path at the summer and winter solstices. This is a stereographic representation of the whole sky which distorts the sky and magnifies the size of the sun’s path near the horizon.