Neil's News

Summer Solstice

22 June 2003

Sunrise: 04:12
Sunset:  22:18

This isn't the land of the midnight sun. But it's very close. Here's a photograph of the northern sky taken at midnight on the summer solstice. One can clearly see that the sun is just a few degrees below the horizon (9.5° to be exact). It would have been much brighter if it weren't for the heavy cloud cover; but in Scotland that's not going to happen.

I took this photo at midnight. Contrary to popular belief (as implied in question #16 of this FAQ), midnight isn't 24:00. Due to daylight savings time, everything is shifted by one hour. But unless one lives at the exact centre of one's timezone, midnight isn't 01:00 either. Elgin has a 15 minute offset since we are 4° west of Greenwich. So midnight for us is 01:15.

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