30 May 2008

That Ever-Changing Sky

(Here's to post #100!)

One thing that can be said of Aberdeen (and probably the whole of the UK) is that it has an ever-changing sky. Granted, it may be ever-changing in shades of grey, but due to large volumes of clouds that pass overhead each day and the amount of wind usually present, the sky is often changing.On top of clouds and wind, there is also the vast difference between length of days in winter and "summer" (I use this in the traditional term meaning June-ish to August-ish because I have already made up my mind it is a constant "Autumn" here)...as we've been finding out. Winter was rough with it getting dark at 3:30pm, but summer has it's challenges too. See what it looked like when we went to bed at 10pm last night.When is the last time you went to bed an hour before it was dark (civil twilight, see below)? I feel like a kid whose bedtime is before dark. It seems like it should be easy enough to be in bed before it's dark, but we both find that we are not quite as tired lately at night as usual (though we still try to get to bed around our usual time, otherwise when those alarms go off at 5:30-Mark and 6:30-me we won't make it out of bed!)

Here are the stats on tonight for those interested (like my Dad!)

May 30, 2008 Rise: Set:
Actual Time 4:24 AM BST 9:49 PM BST
Civil Twilight 3:22 AM BST 10:52 PM BST
Nautical Twilight

Astronomical Twilight

Moon 2:16 AM BST 3:58 PM BST
Length Of Visible Light: 19h 29m
Length of Day
17h 25m
Tomorrow will be 2m 43s longer.

We are just glad that we have finally gotten our room dark so we aren't waking up at 4 something any more. It's taken multiple layers of defense, but it works so we haven't touched it all week lest we are unable to recreate the perfect darkness. We are trying to treasure this light while we have it...we know another winter will be on its way too soon! (Sunset another night recently)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

That reminds me of living in Germany, although I wasn't as far north as you. I'm sure what you are experiencing now is what I experienced in the most extreme case (June 25) in Frankfurt. But it was nice having all that energy! -Todd

Ronnica said...

That's a lot of light! Too bad you can't bottle it up and save some for winter.

In Everything said...

I couldn't imagine having kids over there.... could you imagine handling the little ones being up at 4:30am.... the sun is rising around 6:30 here (I think). At least that's the time the kids are getting up:)

But it's fun having longer days... I love the summer:)

The Green Family said...

Awesome pics, Rachel!! As always!