Equniox

Earth swings through the third of the four special points in its orbit.

Here is part of our explanation of the seasons, on page 85 of the Astronomical Calendar.

The moment when the Sun is overhead at the equator, crossing into the southern half of the celestial sphere, is 18:19 by Universal Time.

By standard time, this is the same in Britain (6:19 PM), 5 and 8 hours earlier in North America’s Eastern and Pacific time zones; but, by clocks still on the artificial summer time, one hour later than that.

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This weblog maintains its right to be about astronomy or anything under the sun.

ILLUSTRATIONS in these posts are made with precision but have to be inserted in another format. You may be able to enlarge them on your monitor.

One way: right-click, and choose ”View image” or ”Open image in new tab”, then enlarge. Or choose ”Copy image”, then put it on your desktop, then open it. On an iPad or phone, use the finger gesture that enlarges (spreading with two fingers, or tapping and dragging with three fingers). Other methods have been suggested, such as dragging the image to the desktop and opening it in other ways.

Sometimes I make improvements or corrections to a post after publishing it.  If you click on the title, rather than on ‘Read more’, I think you are sure to see the latest version. Or, if you click ‘Refresh’ or press function key 5, you’ll see the latest version.