Equinox Enter the Sun

September 22, 2007

Equinoxe_web

Provided by: Jens Hackmann
Summary authors & editors: Jens Hackmann

The next autumnal equinox is September 23, 2007 at 0951 UTC (5:51 a.m. EDT/2:51 a.m. PDT).

The photo above showing the Sun near the time of the equinox was taken at the Sternwarte Observatory in Weikersheim, Germany. In this case, though, the Sun is seen at the vernal (spring) rather than the autumnal equinox. The azimuth of the Sun at the time the picture was taken was exactly 270 degrees. At our observatory, the doors are positioned exactly west-east, so the Sun can be seen through them when it stands in either a due west or due east direction.

The last vernal equinox occurred on March 21, 2007 at 0007 UTC (March 20, 2007 8:07 p.m. EDT/5:07 p.m. PDT). This image was taken two weeks later at 17:35 UTC on April 4, 2007. It was made of three single frames taken with a Canon EOS 30D D-SLR and a 10 - 22 mm lens. It is a high dynamic range (HDR) composite.

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