09/22/2022 – Ephemeris – Autumn will begin this evening

This is Ephemeris for Thursday, September 22nd. Today the Sun will be up for 12 hours and 10 minutes, setting at 7:40, and it will rise tomorrow at 7:31. The Moon, 3 days before new, will rise at 4:46 tomorrow morning.

The season of fall is about to, ah well, fall upon us and in a few weeks so will the leaves. At 9:04 this evening (1:04 UT tomorrow) the Sun will cross the celestial equator heading south. The celestial equator is an imaginary line in the sky above the earth’s equator. At that point, the Sun will theoretically set at the North Pole and rise at the South Pole. The day is called the autumnal equinox and the daylight hours today is 12 hours and 10 minutes instead of 12 hours exactly. That’s due to our atmosphere and our definition of sunrise and sunset. The reason for the cooler weather now and the cold weather this winter is that the length of daylight is shortening, and the Sun rides lower in the sky, spreading its heat over a larger area, thus diluting its intensity.

The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EDT, UT – 4 hours). They may be different for your location.

Addendum

The Sun’s path through the sky on an equinox day from the Traverse City/Interlochen area in Michigan. The Sun is plotted every 15 minutes. This is a stereographic projection which compresses the image near the zenith and enlarges the image towards the horizon. Note that the Sun rises due east and sets due west. Created using my LookingUp program.

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. When the Sun is on the celestial equator, it rises due east and sets due west. Credit: Bob Moler.

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 on the autumnal equinox of 2016. North America is in the upper right of the globe.

Earth’s position at the solstices and equinoxes. This is an not to scale oblique look at the Earth’s orbit, which is nearly circular. The Earth is actually farthest from the Sun on July 4th. Click on the image to enlarge. Credit: ESO (European Southern Observatory), which explains the captions in German and English.