The September equinox falls on Monday Sep. 23, at about 8 by Universal Time. That is after sunrise for Europe, but by American clocks is nearer to the midnight between Sunday and Monday. So the good time to contemplate equinoxes is on Sunday evening.
See the end note about enlarging illustrations.
This view is only about 7 hours before the instant of the equinox.
The Sun is arriving at one of the two places where the ecliptic crosses the celestial equator – in other words, it is moving into the southern celestial hemisphere. 180 degrees away, at the opposite crossroads, we show an imaginary “anti-Sun,” toward which the shadow of our Earth points.
And half way between them is the “antapex of Earth’s Way,” away from which we are moving in our orbit.
Near this are Jupiter and Saturn, because at this time we are rushing away from them. Jupiter appeared exactly 90° from the Sun (“east quadrature”) on Sep. 8, and the antapex will reach Saturn on Oct. 7.
This three-dimensional picture shows the planets’ orbits and their paths in the month of September, with sight-lines from Earth to the Sun and planets at Sep. 23.
The viewpoint is 6 astronomical units (Sun-Earth distances) from the Sun, at a latitude of 15° north of the ecliptic plane and longitude of 45° from the vernal equinox direction (the “zero” point of the sky). We see the Sun in that direction at the March equinox; the Sun sees us in that direction at the September equninox.
I was out this morning at my cliff-top “Dawn Point” in good time to see the sunrise. After that inevitable building of suspense, the Sun flashed out from the steep face of Golden Cap. It was 7:05, would have been I think twelve minutes earlier down on the geometrical horizon. I had forgotten to take in my bicycle pannier the means to make a picture, and tomorrow the clear September weather (which has allowed me some swims in the sea) may be over, so for an equinox sunrise picture I’ve had to pull the Sun up into a pre-dawn one I made in a past year.
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ILLUSTRATIONS in these posts are made with precision but have to be inserted in another format. You may be able to enlarge them on your monitor. One way: right-click, and choose “View image”, then enlarge. Or choose “Copy image”, then put it on your desktop, then open it. On an iPad or phone, use the finger gesture that enlarges (spreading with two fingers, or tapping and dragging with three fingers). Other methods have been suggested, such as dragging the image to the desktop and opening it in other ways.
This weblog maintains its right to be about astronomy or anything under the sun.
Thanks for posting your artwork. Very enjoyable.
‘Anything under the sun’ … you are not kidding! your artwork is lovely.