Category: Astronomy

If you live in the northern hemisphere like me then this Friday is hibernal or winter solstice. For those of you in the southern hemisphere it will be the summer solstice. Either way happy solstice to all! For those of us in midwinter the Earth’s north pole is at its maximum tilt away from the sun. This means that the apparent height of the sun is at its lowest point in the sky on the winter solstice.

Believe it or not a bunch of people — your friends and neighbors — have no idea what I’m talking about right now. But I suspect you think astronomy is cool or you wouldn’t be reading this right now. So I’m here to help you build an awesome solar calendar in your front yard both to mark the changing of the seasons and to help visualize the sun’s apparent motion across the sky. Your neighbor kids will love it trust me. And it will be fun for you to design and build. After the jump is a photo of the finished product as it looks in the parking strip in front of my house.

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The Oregon Star Party (OSP) gathers every year in August in the high desert of the Ochoco Mountains in Central Oregon. This year it was brutally hot during the day and bone-chilling cold at night. In other words a typical year. Kat and I attended again this year so I wanted to capture the experience and document some of the sketches I made. First here is a gorgeous sunset taken from our remote 5,000-foot elevation base camp:

Of course the pretty colors came at a heavy price as wild fires continued to burn over 200,000 acres throughout Oregon. The fires at the Warm Springs Reservation directly to the west of us had already consumed about 55,000 acres. The dark orange sunlight had to refract through all of that smoke settling in the distant valley.

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A few weeks ago I volunteered to help Bernie Taylor, a fellow member of Rose City Astronomers, to investigate whether the so-called “Hancock Woman” pictograph out near Fossil, Oregon might be a solar calendar.

Bernie wrote the book Biological Time and he was kind enough to give me a copy. I have only had time to skim it heavily at this point but I highly recommend it to anyone interested in biological rhythms and the way animal behavior changes during lunar and solar cycles in nature.

Continue reading “Hancock Woman Pictograph Solar Calendar”