Twilight of the gods
posted in Alaska |Here we are, it’s May 6, and the sun is rising at 5:30 a.m., setting at 10:20 p.m.
In most areas I’ve lived, "twilight" is pretty well-defined. It lasts about 30 minutes, then *poof*, it’s nighttime.
Here in Alaska, though, I’ve learned some new terms: "civil twilight", "nautical twilight", "astronomic twilight". The one I’m used to is the "civil twilight"–the time when the sun is less than 6° below the horizon. Then there’s "nautical twilight", the period when the sun is between 6° and 12° below the horizon. "Astronomic twilight" is when it’s officially night, and you can do starwatching.
Last night, I was suffering from insomnia. I kept waking up and still being able to see faint light around our windows, at the edges of the curtains. Surely, I thought, I was mistaken.
So I fired up Teh Google and searched for a sunrise/sunset calculator. I found one with civil twilight mentioned, and it didn’t seem to match my experience, so I tried another. And there it was, in all its glory:
Civil twilight–4:35 a.m. to 5:30 a.m., 10:20 p.m. to 11:16 p.m.
Nautical twilight–2:25 a.m. to 4:35 a.m., 11:16 p.m. to 1:27 a.m.
Astronomic twilight: "Light".
Eh? Say what?!
Hey, by my calculations, we should have one hour of full dark right now! Look right above–Nautical twilight begins at 2:25 a.m. in the morning, ends at 1:27 a.m. in the morning. So there’s a full fifty-eight minutes being ignored by that calculator.
Harrumph.
Anyway, "nautical twilight" means that navigators can see bright stars and the horizon at the same time. "General outlines of ground objects may be distinguishable, but detailed outdoor operations are not possible, and the horizon is indistinct" sayeth the write-up in Wikipedia.
What it means, in general, is that we have no Real Dark now. Not to say that we have light all the time, but we are possessed of "glow". And it’s enough to seep around the edges of our curtains, and enough light so that I can stumble through the house in the faint light and see humps where the chest at the foot of our bed is or the sofas are in the living room.
It’s quite disconcerting. And we have a month and a half of increasing daylight to go!
In the meantime, we have been plagued by moose. Meese? More than one moose. Lolling about in our backyard. Nibbling on the nice, tender, tasty shoots coming out of our shrubbery, with their just-about-to-bust-open leaf buds.
Damn moose.
