| Tonight is the Vernal Equinox so the sun whould align with the McGraw Hill Sun Triangle at noon today. But because we fiddled with the clock early this month it was due to happen at 1300 EDT. Because NYC is at longitude 74°W and the central meridian for out time zone is 75°W it should have happened about four minutes before the hour. But Peter and I both reconed that it happened about three minutes after the hour by our watches. My watch keeps good time and was reset to WWV on the 3rd of the month in preparation for the change to Daylight Saving Time so I am confident of when the event occurred. Peter says that it wouldn’t be exactly four minutes early because the meridians are a different distance apart at our latitude than they are at the equator and I need to factor in the cosine of the latitude (I think that is what it is). That is more math than I am interested in and even if I did factor it in, the time should still be before the hour rather than after it.
The gathering of people was small today. Nobody from AAA was there and only a handful of people from one of the Rock Center offices. I wonder if people will show up tomorrow because the signs about the sculpture say 21 March.
1205 EDT – First view from above.
1208 EDT – Looking from in front of the McGraw-Hill building to the east.
1209 EDT – Looking head on into the Sun Triangle from the south the way the Sun will do it when it souths.
1210 EDT – Sighting up the upper edge of the Sun Triangle to where the Sun will be at local noon. Lots of dust on the lens that doesn’t bother anything much until you look into the Sun.
1210 EDT – The shadow at the base of the triangle pylon. Peter has pointed out that during the Autumnal Equinox the shadow is out in front of the pylon.
1215 EDT
1230 EDT
1231 EDT
1232 EDT
1245 EDT
1255 EDT
1256 EDT – This is when the sun should have lined up with the triangle.
1300 EDT , Local Noon – This is when the Sun should line up with the triangle and the shadow should be at minimum if we were on our time zone’s central meridian.
1301 EDT
1303 EDT – The moment when the Sun was lined up with the triangle.
1306 EDT
1307 EDT – Already the shadow has expanded on the eastern side.
1314 EDT
1330 EDT
1345 EDT
|
<< Home