“Equinox” comes from the Latin “equal night”. An equinox occurs when Sun crosses the celestial equator, making the length of time of daylight equal to (or nearly equal to) the length of time of night. Days are longer than nights the farther from the equator you observe daylight on an equinox. It all has to do with sun angles and paths across the sky. I found a good explanation at the Date and Time web site.

Seventy countries practice DST, which originated with Benjamin Franklin in 1784. The idea was that people who rose before sunrise used more electricity in the morning than they would if they rose an hour later in the summer. So, the hour hand on the clocks are shifted forward an hour in the spring and shifted back an hour in the fall.
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I had a hard time believing it when I heard it, thinking that ”it must be a different Buzz Aldrin!” I had to search online to confirm what I had heard.

One question comes to my mind …”why?” A comment he made during an interview with Zap2it, according to Smithsonian.com, might help to answer that question: “Living on Air Force retirement and Social Security, I’m forced to go out and sing for my supper quite a bit.”

It is regrettable that a national hero feels the pinch to the extent that he participates in a show that he might not otherwise have considered.

Many organizations have contributed to the educational site. It is free and available for use online through the ASP (Astronomical Society of the Pacific).

Using real time images of Sun, you can fly around it to see the side away from Earth, zoom in and out to inspect features, and do many other things, right in your hand. You can have real time images of sunspots, coronal holes, and flares. If a flare occurs, your phone will jingle and let you know.  You can have alerts to let you know when other types of events occur, as well.

If you just have to have this app for your Iphone, check it out. Let me know how you like it.

As SDO rose through the levels of Earth’s atmosphere, it encountered a sundog. (A sundog is an atmospheric phenomenon that occurs when sunlight is refracted by ice crystals in clouds.) Passing through the cloud formation, shock waves can be seen as SDO climbs higher into the sky. The shock waves obliterate the sundog. Watch the video taken by Anna Herbst of Bishop, California.

Keeping track of solar activity, whether strong activity or no activity, is a very necessary task. A strong solar flare could be devastating for space missions, disastrous for astronauts, and hazardous for Earth based electric grids.
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If you are wondering what that “flappy tape-like substance” is seen at around minute four of the video, the answer has been provided by Mr. Randy Moore of JCS: “that is the remains of kapton material that is installed over the ET (external tank) to Orbiter umbilical area. It’s known as umbilical purge barrier and is used to contain N2 purge of aft compartment and decrease ice buildup. The barrier blows off the Orbiter during the first minute of ascent. That piece of footage was actually from the 16mm film camera on STS-129.  The 130 film is not yet developed.”

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