Equinox or Equilux?

Today is 21st September, which I always thought was the September equinox, when there are equal amounts of daylight and night everywhere on earth. Wrong! I will explain after I have shown you some gorgeous photos that I took this morning...

...the sun is just creeping over the Hottentots Holland Mountain range, and a bird in mid-flight - quite accidental..

...the rising sun is shining on the duck pond, making it look like a pool of gold...

...a family of ducks swims into the golden light.

Earlier in the week I was looking for the sunset time for Cape Town, so that we could take Stuart and Doug (from the USA, here installing the playout system into the computers) to the beach to watch it. Glancing through the week's forecast, which included the sunrise and sunset times, I noticed that Wednesday, which was the 19th, was the closest to 12 hours of sunlight and 12 hours without sunlight, which puzzled me, as I knew the 19th was not the equinox.

Researching this a little more I discovered that the name for that day (when sunrise and sunset are closest to being 12 hours apart) is called the equilux, a new term to me. Also, the actual equinox is a single moment in time — it does not take the whole day. This year it occurs at 9.51 on 23rd September.

The reason that there is more sunlight at the moment of equinox is because of refraction of the sun's rays through the atmosphere around the curvature of the Earth, which increases the further away from the Equator you are located. So here in Cape Town at a latitude of -33 degrees the difference is about 7 minutes. So what is equinox, I hear you ask? It is the point at which the sun is observed directly overhead of the Equator producing zero shadows. Another piece of trivia, which may come in handy one day!

So, returning to my original story about watching the sunset over the Atlantic Ocean. We got caught up in the post-work traffic and pulled into the beach car park just as the sun had almost disappeared below the horizon. I didn't even have time to get the camera out!

Nevertheless, we trekked onto the sand and pointed out Robben Island and the classic view of Table Mountain, which the area Table View is named after. The lights were already coming on in the city and the mountain was in seen in sillouette against the dusk skyline, and we shivered in the wind!

I did take a photo, but it was blurred (must have been the wind!), so here is one you haven't seen before, taken from Robben Island. The light on the mountain is a reflection from my flash off the window of the coach we were travelling in. I rejected it, but as I'm into 'arty' photos today, maybe it will fit!