06/05/2018 – Ephemeris – Green flash

Ephemeris for Tuesday, June 5th. Today the Sun will be up for 15 hours and 25 minutes, setting at 9:24, and it will rise tomorrow at 5:58. The Moon, 1 day before last quarter, will rise at 2:16 tomorrow morning.

Now that it’s June and the season of summer is only two weeks away, thoughts run to heading out to the beach. One of the great pleasures of heading out to a Lake Michigan beach is seeing the sunset. And if the Sun sets on the cloudless horizon, a rare treat is to see the green flash. I’ve heard about it since my youth, but have seen it only once. I’ve seen the sunset many, though not a huge number of, times. The time I did, I was purposely looking for it. The green flash is when as the last part of the upper limb of the Sun disappears it suddenly turns green for a second, then it’s gone. So it’s easy to miss. The flash isn’t really brighter, but the top edge turns suddenly from reddish-orange to green as it disappears.

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

Addendum

The green flash recorded by Brocken Inaglory in January 2006 from Santa Cruz, CA. GNU Free Documentation License from the Green Flash Wikipedia page, which has more examples.