My First blog post

Greetings!  I would like to start by thanking you for your patience with my lack of experience with on-line publishing.  Let’s see if I can get going without too many mishaps!

I usually enjoy astronomy when I am looking up into the sky.  However, interesting things can be found by looking at the ground!  A year ago, as my wife and I were on an afternoon walk, our shadows looked strange.  I was surprised to see how long they were and how well they lined up with the road direction.

Here’s the situation: We were out just before sunset on the first day of Autumn.  We were walking Eastward on an East-West road.  On the first day of Autumn, sunset is exactly in the West.  So our shadows were a couple of hundred feet long, without going off the road.

Notice that our shadows are veering to the left.  Since the Sun was still a little bit above the horizon, it wasn’t exactly in the West.  It was a tiny bit to the South.  Therefore, our shadows were pointing a tiny bit to the North.

I will back again soon!

lookin’ up,

John