Krioma.net

Yesterday was Winter Solstice, the official start of Winter for the Northern Hemisphere. This point is when the Sun drops to its lowest altitude in the sky. It is also the shortest day of the year, in the sense that the length of time elapsed between sunrise and sunset on this day is a minimum for the year. Nothing particularly special occurs due to this.. except that it is normal quite cold! It was today. There is some cultural and religious stuff associated with this but I am not someone able to comment about that in more detail than say there is some significance! (see below for relevant link)

I decided to go out and do some observing of the sun via the projection method that I described the other day (remember sun safety!). It was quite a nice day and I got a few interesting shots. I got a good view of a sunspot through a pair of binoculars (1st photo below) and unfortunately, due to me leaving the bar to attach my counter weight to my 3" Newtonian telescope, was not able to get my telescope aimed at this. I did get a good shot of some trees in the way of the solar disc though (2nd photo below). I was quite pleased and was glad to come inside as it was quite cold.





More:
+ Winter Solstice - http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/astronomy/WinterSolstice.html
+ Solar Observing - http://www.krioma.net/blog/archives/2004_12_19.php#000480
+ Cultural Stuff - http://www.candlegrove.com/solstice.html