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General discussion

Why don't the earliest sunset and latest sunrise coincide with the winter solstice?

Dec 13, 2003 7:55AM PST

Here's what happens near the winter solstice, with dates appropriate to Boston:

Discussion is locked

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I spoke to "them" about this and...
Dec 13, 2003 10:45AM PST

was informed that the original intent was as you desired but the HG bumped the astral table causing additional but unnoticed axial tilt. By the time it was noticed calandars were in use and frankly (according to "them") it wasn't worth the bother.

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Re:I spoke to
Dec 13, 2003 12:05PM PST
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Head Guy?
Dec 13, 2003 1:15PM PST

.

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Yep, I thought about using HS...
Dec 13, 2003 2:00PM PST

but wasn't sure how many might be familiar with Daddy-o, Laddy-o and the Holy Spook.

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A WAG response
Dec 13, 2003 2:31PM PST

There are two factors involved in summer and winter:

1) the axial tilt. If this was the sole issue, then summer and winter would all be deterministic,
2) the orbit of the Earth around the sun.

As I understand it, no links, northern and southern summers and winters reflect not only the sunlight intensity due to the axial tilt, but also due to the fact that Earth's orbit is an elipse, not a circle.

Daylight starting and ending hours get mixed up, where the axial tilt says that days should be getting longer, but the orbit says, "hey, whoah there, I'm not quite ready yet".

Ian