Sunrise & Sunset - where and when.

EdinburghGary

EdinburghGary

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Hello,

I will try and keep these questions as simple as possible.

Question 1:
Where does the sun rise, and where does it set, and at what times. I have been on this planet for 28 years, and I can point to the areas I normally see a sunrise and sunset, but I really don't understand the mechanics and timing.

Question 2:
Will there be a massive difference in timing between for example Inverness & London?

Question 3:
There seems to be a massive colour difference between winter sunrise & sunsets vs non winter. In the winter on a clear day, you get very rich or warm colours. Are these colours ever present in the non winter months (now for example?).



Sorry for the complete novice questions, but the light from the sun has a massive effect on our photos. I am wanting to go camping in the next week (Renault Scenic temp campervan conversion :)), and I would love to get some sunrise and sunsets over a lake or loch with some surrounding hills and forests etc... Any suggestions???

Have a look at the header pic here for inspiration:
http://www.visitaviemore.com/PtarmiganRestaurant.html Going to start another thread with regards to this pic.

Gary.
 
Here's a link on timings of sunset and sunrise throughout the year for various places in the UK:

http://www.canterburyweather.co.uk/sun/ukmap.php

The further north you go, the later the sun will rise and set, I think... and naturally, this also depends on your latitude location.

Don't really know about the colours etc - I've seen amazing sunrises/sets at all times of the year at different places in the world.
 
There are a few variables to be taken into concideration
distance from the equator is one. In the northern hemisphere
the constant though is the sun always rises in the East and sets in the West.
Dec 21st (shortest day ) and June 21st ( longest day)
spring equinox = day / night equal lenghth around March the 20th
summer solstice = day /night equal length around Sept 22nd
 
As ekimeno says the time of sunrise and sunset varies across the year but so does the actual direction of sunrise and sunsets and by a suprising amount.

There is a DEPSI card you can get from places like WE that shows you the actual direction of Sunrise and Sunset along with a Hyperfocal Distance Chart it costs about £3ish IIRC and all you need to do is line it up with North to give you the direction of either Sunrise or Sunset.

Alternatively there is a product from Flight Logistics called the Sun Compass that has a built in compass but it costs alot more and doesn't have the Hyperfocal Distance Chart.
 
ekimeno said:
The further north you go, the later the sun will rise and set, I think... and naturally, this also depends on your latitude location.
Click to expand...

That's not quite true. The further north you are, the longer the days are in summer and the shorter they are in winter. If you go far enough north (the Arctic circle) then you get summer days where the sun never sets and winter days when it never rises.

The other issue is how far you are from the Greenwich meridian. If you are on the meridian, then the sun should be at its highest at midday. If you are to the west of that (as most of the UK is) then it will be a bit later. Of course, summertime changes everything by an hour as well.

As an aside, before the railways, places used to have local time and Bristol was about 10 minutes behind London (as time was typically calibrated to the sun), which made timetables very difficult. Great Western Railway synchronised time on its routes to London time in the mid 1800's, the first time we had a "national" time.
 
Like it's been said, the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Sunrise and sunset times can be found on most weather sites, I usually use www.accuweather.com or the met office one.
 
I used to have to manually work out sunrise and sunset times around the world using the old fashioned paper and pencil method. Nowadays, there are many sites that publish this data or give you an online calculator to work it out for you after inputting the relevant co ordinates.
But, the easiest way, if you are away from a computer is by using a handheld GPS unit that will display these times. I had a Garmin GPS 60cs that did all this for me.
Allan
 
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