This is the
Classical Astronomy Update, an email newsletter especially
for Christian homeschool families (though everyone is welcome!) Please feel free to share this with any interested
friends.
Hear the right, O Lord, attend unto my cry, give ear unto my prayer, that goeth not out of feigned lips. Let my sentence come forth from thy presence; let thine eyes behold the things that are equal. - Psalm 17:1-2 IN THIS UPDATE The Vernal Equinox Hello Friends, Welcome to all the new subscribers! We haven't had this many new readers sign up in quite a while. Hope you all enjoy this newsletter and appreciate what we're trying to accomplish -- to revive an understanding of lost knowledge that was once commonplace. And thanks to everyone who shared the last newsletter and invited your friends to join! I really appreciate your support and your help in spreading the word
about the wonderful things that that the LORD has concealed in the sky. Classical Astronomy is the most important subject that no one ever heard of. Classical Astronomy impacts our daily lives in so many
ways, but many people are unaware. Like the topic of this newsletter, for example. Everyone has noticed that that the days are getting longer, but most people don't understand why. They just take it for granted as a fact of life, but have never been taught why. People hear the word "vernal equinox" but don't have a clear idea what that means. We're here to help with that. There will be another newsletter out soon to discuss this important news.... the TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE that will pass over the USA around this time next year! The date will be Monday, April 8, 2024, and the one-year "pre-anniversary" will be in three weeks. So what have you been hearing about this eclipse
in the media? Nothing, of course! That's because Classical Astronomy is the most important subject that no one ever heard of! Advance planning is very crucial if you want to witness this rare total eclipse of
the Sun. Every American should make a plan and become informed on this subject, especially everyone east of the Mississippi. So the next newsletter will help with that. In other news, I've been invited to
participate in a podcast with The Old Schoolhouse magazine. The date will be Wednesday, April 5, at 1:00 PM EDT. I'll be chatting with our hostess Heather along with Paul and Gena, the
publishers, to discuss Natural Timekeeping. This topic is the essence of Classical Astronomy and entails the God-given methods for finding the time of day, the day of the month, and the month of the year by observing the cycles of the Sun, Moon, stars and planets. This topic will also be of interest to homesteaders and preppers, who want to know traditional and "off-grid" methods of telling time. This podcast will be streamed live on Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn and the recording will be available on those platforms after the event. Here's a previous edition of this podcast. Hope you'll all participate and tell your friends! By the way, hope you all caught the conjunction of Venus and Jupiter on March 1. It was really a beautiful sight. That was a closer alignment than usual and those objects looked like a bright, glowing pair of eyes shining down out of the twilight. Diane sent these pix, very nice shots. Hope
you all have been following this pair as they are now diverging, Venus rising higher as Jupiter sinks lower. Jupiter will vanish soon into the sunset though Venus will continue to shine down every evening for the rest of the spring and through most of the summer. For more information about topics from Classical Astronomy discussed in this newsletter,
please check out a homeschool astronomy curriculum (but popular with adult readers too!) Visit our archive of previous editions of the Classical Astronomy Update newsletters, going back to 2007. *****
The Vernal Equinox We've all been noticing that the days have been getting longer. Last week was the "spring forward" to daylight savings time, where we all set the clocks forward at hour. Until next
November, the Sun will rise an hour later and set an hour later compared when it would otherwise rise and set according to standard time. The days will continue to get longer until June 21, following the neverending solar cycle of the seasons. You might hear on a weather forecast that spring will begin on Monday, March 20 at 5:24 PM EDT. If you're like me, you might wonder why it's such a precise time. What happens between 5:23 and 5:25? What is that transition, what takes place during that that makes the season switch from winter to spring? In our calendar system, the start of spring is as the precise moment when the Sun is centered on the celestial equator. Most people have not heard that there is a celestial equator. But just as the Earth has an Equator an equal distance between the poles, so does the celestial sphere have a similar circle
that divides the sky into northern and southern hemispheres. The vernal equinox is actually a point on the celestial sphere where the celestial equator is crossed by the ecliptic, the annual path of the Sun across the celestial sphere. Of course we understand in modern times that the celestial sphere and these apparent circles are just illusions, appearences that result from the
daily rotation of the Earth and its annual revolution around the Sun. But these are powerful illusions that are very helpful in describing the motions of the Sun, Moon and planets, and finding the signs in the sky that mark the passing seasons. So here's what's happening: the Earth is orbiting the Sun each year while its axis of rotation remains pointed in the same general direction as the North Star, Polaris. As a result, most of the Earth's northern hemisphere is enshrouded in the shadow of darkness during the fall and winter, with maximum darkness on shortest day of the year, the winter solstice. Meanwhile, the southern hemisphere is experiencing its longest day of the year, with maximum sunlight
shining on that half of the globe. As the Earth moves around its orbit throughout the winter, more and more light is shining on the northern hemisphere, which makes the days grow longer. By March 20, the amount of
daylight is equally distributed across the entire globe of the Earth. This date is thus called the equinox, since the amount of the sunshine that causes daylight is equal to the amount of shadow that produces the nighttime. And the amount of sunlight over the northern hemisphere continues to increase for another three months after the equinox, until the summer solstice on June 21. So the days continue to grow longer until that date. (For a more clear and complete explanation of these topics, please check out Signs & Seasons, our homeschool astronomy curriculum) Because of this seasonal shifting between the solstices, the Sun varies between northern and southern extremes in the sky. During the
wintertime, the Sun is south of the celestial equator, and thus appears in the southern half of the celestial sphere. So the Sun rises and sets far to the south and never gets very high above the horizon at noon. And the Sun traces a short path across the sky, so that the length of daylight is short. But the opposite situation prevails in the summertime. The Sun is north of the celestial equator, and thus appears in the northern half of the celestial sphere. The Sun rises and sets far to the north and appears high above the horizon at noon. The Sun's path across the sky is long, so that the days are the longest of the year. But on the equinox, the Sun is in the
middle between these seasonal extremes. Thus, on the equinox, the Sun rises due east and sets due west. There is a common misconception that the Sun rises perfectly
east and west every day of the year. But the fact is, the two equinoxes are the only days of the year when the Sun does actually rise and set at these compass points. And on the equinox, the Sun's path across the sky forms an angle to the horizon which is the complement to the angle of the latitude of that location. This is an interesting fact that can assist with navigation, and can be something to notice when travelling north or south. Many cities in the USA were laid out on a cardinal grid so that roads run north-south and east-west. If you live on such a street, try to
notice the position of the sunrise and sunset on Monday. You can expect to see the Sun coming up and going down at the ends of your street. And the shadows of objects will be parallel or perpendicular to the streets and sidewalks when the Sun is near the horizon. This is a neat thing to notice. And you can watch the sunrise and sunset positions as they move further north over the coming weeks and months. Be sure to keep an eye on the shifting positions of the sunrise and sunsets over the seasons. I have enjoyed this for many years and it has
blessed my life. You can explain this to your friends and family members because they won't find out otherwise. Because Classical Astronomy is the most important subject that no one ever heard of. Til next time, God bless and clear skies, - jay The Ryan
Family Cleveland, Ohio, USA When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained, what is man that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? - Psalm 8:3-4, a Psalm of David
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