Why do people not notice the equinox when it happens?

[Hornbein]

The things that people just don't know are amazing. But that goes for all of us. I keep having to remind myself not to be smug about it - 'cos my subset of non-knowledge is huge.

I was 60 before I found out that Jupiter and Saturn were visible to the naked eye. Not only that, they are in the top ten brightest objects in the night sky. Duh.

 

[Herman Trivilino]

Why do people not notice the equinox when it happens ?

Most people don't care. After reading this thread it seems there are at least three ways to do it:

Keep track of the the times of sunset/sunrise as the days go by, and even then you wouldn't know about it until days after it happened.
Keep track of the length of the shadows of vertical posts, and again you wouldn't know about it until days after it happened.

How many people would do that when you can just find out from watching the news/weather or looking at your computer or smart phone?

So that third method is the one most people use. But again most people don't care. It doesn't affect their daily lives, it's just a signal to those in the know that the weather trends will be gradually changing as the amount of daylight gradually changes.

 

[DaveC426913]

I live near the equator. I once told someone that in other latitudes the days change length. She was amazed.

What surprises me, the times I fly to the tropics for vacations, is how quickly sunset happens. It's like 15 minutes of dusk. Here in the Great White North, the sun slides obliquely toward the horizon over an hour or two.

(I assume sunrises are the same, only in reverse, but of course I never see sunrises, since they generally occur at an uncivilized time.)

 

[sophiecentaur]

(I assume sunrises are the same, only in reverse,

You must be like me about getting up. That part of the day just doesn't exist for me. My Astronomer chums stay up for sunrise events; incredible.

 

[Baluncore]

What surprises me, the times I fly to the tropics for vacations, is how quickly sunset happens. It's like 15 minutes of dusk. Here in the Great White North, the sun slides obliquely toward the horizon over an hour or two.

In the tropics, where the sun sets almost vertically, (ignoring atmospheric refraction), it takes only two minutes for the 0.5° diameter sun to contact, and then fall below the horizon.

Civil twilight is the period from sunset until civil dusk, during which artificial lighting is not needed. Civil dusk is defined to be when the upper limb of the sun is 6° below the horizon. In the tropics, civil twilight lasts only 24 minutes, elsewhere twilight can last for many hours. Inside the polar circles, twilight, can last for 24 hours, including both dawn and dusk.

 

[pbuk]

I was 60 before I found out that Jupiter and Saturn were visible to the naked eye. Not only that, they are in the top ten brightest objects in the night sky. Duh.

Jupiter yes but Saturn is about 13th at the moment and in a few months it will have dropped out of the top 20. I don't believe it will hit the top ten until September 2028 for a few months.

https://theskylive.com/how-bright-is-saturn
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_brightest_natural_objects_in_the_sky

 

[Drakkith]

I live near the equator. I once told someone that in other latitudes the days change length. She was amazed.

I saw a youtube video years ago of some tribal people in the Amazon reacting to being shown snow and ice on a video on a laptop. Hard to image people never having seen frozen water before.

 

[Hornbein]

I saw a youtube video years ago of some tribal people in the Amazon reacting to being shown snow and ice on a video on a laptop. Hard to image people never having seen frozen water before.

These days even Tokyo gets hardly any snow.

Bali has an indoor snow play area with slides and so forth. $1.75 admission.

 

[DaveC426913]

I saw a youtube video years ago of some tribal people in the Amazon reacting to being shown snow and ice on a video on a laptop. Hard to image people never having seen frozen water before.

"The Mosquito Coast" (1986, Harrison Ford, River Phoenix)

(except it wasn't a laptop; he manufactured and then dragged a refrigerator-sized block of ice miles through the jungle)

 

[A.T.]

I was 60 before I found out that Jupiter and Saturn were visible to the naked eye. Not only that, they are in the top ten brightest objects in the night sky. DuDuh.

It's one thing to be aware of this fact, and another to identify specific planets when looking at the sky. Unlike known stars, planets aren't fixed relative to the constalations and not visible all year round. You have to know where and when to look for them.

It wasn't before I installed the app Stellarium on my phone that I started noticing how often you can see planets, even in a big city. Before that Mars was probably just a weird yellowish star to me.