Getting started

I spent the first week of June 2004 in Costa Rica. Among other things I was excited by the prospect of seeing the sky from 10 degrees north latitude. Alas, it was the first part of their rainy season so we had clouds most of the time. I did have one clear night and got to see the Southern Cross and alpha Centuri, both firsts for me. Something else new was that the Sun crossed the meridian NORTH of the zenith. First time for that also. In fact, the sun never touched the southern half of the sky while we were there.

One last note about the sky there was the length of the day (daylight hours). It was about 1.5 hours shorter than in Sarasota, which in turn is about 1.5 hours shorter than, say, in New York State (again in June.) And since it is only a couple degrees further west longitude than Sarasota and in the Central Time Zone with no daylight savings in effect, the sun set at about 6:10 PM! On the longest day of the year!

Now if you didn't follow all that, that's OK. I'll explain it more in class.