12/22/15

From Gary... A lesson from the sky



http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html


Solstice Illuminated: A Year of Sky 
Video Credit & Copyright: Ken Murphy (MurphLab); Music: Ariel (Moby)

Explanation: Can you find which day is the winter solstice? Each panel shows one day. With 360 movie panels, the sky over (almost) an entire year is shown in time lapse format as recorded by a video camera on the roof of the Exploratorium museum in San Francisco, California. The camera recorded an image every 10 seconds from before sunrise to after sunset and from mid-2009 to mid-2010. A time stamp showing the local time of day is provided on the lower right. The videos are arranged chronologically, with July 28 shown on the upper left, and January 1 located about half way down. In the videos, darkness indicates night, blue depicts clear day, while gray portrays pervasive daytime cloud cover. Many videos show complex patterns of clouds moving across the camera's wide field as that day progresses. The initial darkness in the middle depicts the delayed dawn and fewer daylight hours of winter. Although every day lasts 24 hours, nighttime lasts longest in the northern hemisphere in December and the surrounding winter months. Therefore, finding the panel with the longest night will locate the day of winter solstice -- which happens to be today in the northern hemisphere. As the videos collectively end, sunset and then darkness descend first on the winter days just above the middle, and last on the mid-summer near the bottom.

One of my interests is astronomy and today the NASA site had an interesting movie that I enjoyed and thought you might as well.  Every day I look at the sky, sometimes in passing, at others in wonder and reflection. I have never considered an entire year of the sky at one time before and it makes me think of how fleeting my time on this Earth really is. Consider this passage from the Psalms...

Psalm 90 (WEB)
 10 The days of our years are seventy,
or even by reason of strength eighty years;
yet their pride is but labor and sorrow,
for it passes quickly, and we fly away.

Today, Gary- today, make the most of the time, for tomorrow is not guaranteed!!!

Remember the following admonition...

Ephesians, Chapter 5 (WEB)
15  Therefore watch carefully how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise;  16 redeeming the time, because the days are evil.  17 Therefore don’t be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

 Now, all that is left is but to practice, practice, practice!!!