Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Tuesday, June 20th. Today the Sun will be up for 15 hours and 33 minutes, setting at 9:31, and it will rise tomorrow at 5:57. The Moon, half way from last quarter to new, will rise at 4:11 tomorrow morning.

Summer will begin overnight at 12:25 a.m. (4:25 UT June 21, 2017) The sun will at its highest at noon today and tomorrow, well at 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 Saturn 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.

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

Addendum

The Sun’s path through the sky on the summer solstice day from Traverse City, MI. Created using my LookingUp program.

Earth from the DSCOVR satellite at the June solstice 2015. Credit NOAA