Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Thursday, September 21st. The Sun will rise at 7:28. It’ll be up for 12 hours and 12 minutes, setting at 7:41. The Moon, 1 day past new, will set at 8:45 this evening.

Enjoy the last full day of summer. Summer will last until 4:02 p.m. (20:02 UTC) tomorrow when the center of the Sun will cross the celestial equator, an imaginary line above the Earth’s equator, heading southward. At that instant autumn will begin. Shortly the Sun will be up less than half the day. The day and the point in the sky that the Sun crosses is called the autumnal equinox. The word equinox means equal night, implying that day and light are of equal length. Geometrically that’s true, but the Earth’s atmosphere and the definition of sunrise and sunset, prolong daylight by a few minutes. The amount of heat we are getting and will get from the Sun cannot sustain our current temperatures, and it will get a lot colder before it gets warmer again.

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

Addendum

Image from the Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) on NOAA’s DSCOVR satellite in halo orbit around the Earth-Sun L-1 point 1 million miles sunward from the Earth last autumnal equinox (2016) at about the same time the autumnal equinox will occur this year.

That is not a pumpkin on the head of the motorcyclist. That’s the Sun rising as I’m traveling east on South Airport Road south of Traverse City Mi. on the autumnal equinox. This is the east-west section of the road. The Sun is rising over the hills some 6 miles to the east. Credit: Bob Moler.