On a day of the equinox, the centre of the Sun spends a roughly equal
amount of time above and below the horizon at every location on the
Earth, night and day being of roughly the same length.*

It was fairly light out when I stepped outside this morning with a cup of coffee.  It was also very warm.  Nice after the past couple mornings.  It was 6:30.  Last evening, C and I decided to celebrate the last sunset of the summer by taking chairs and a beer up to a neighboring field to watch the sunset.  It was about 6:50 or so.  Here's the chart for my area.. 

Tuesday 
 22 September 2009 Eastern Daylight Time 

 SUN
 Begin civil twilight 6:07 a.m. 
 Sunrise 6:36 a.m. 
 Sun transit 12:41 p.m. 
 Sunset 6:46 p.m. 
 End civil twilight 7:15 p.m. 

Thank goodness for civil twilight.  We get almost an extra hour of daylight.  That is due to the part of the sun that is either above or below the center line, that part of the sun that is used for measuring. 

Sunrise and sunset are commonly defined for the upper limb of the solar
disk, rather than its centre. The upper limb is already up for at least
one minute before the centre appears, and likewise, the upper limb sets
one minute later than the centre of the solar disk. Due to atmospheric refraction,
the Sun, when near the horizon, appears a little more than its own
diameter above the position than where it is in reality. This makes
sunrise more than another two minutes earlier and sunset the equal
amount later. These two effects add up to almost seven minutes, making
the equinox day 12 h 7 min long and the night only 11 h 53 min. In
addition to that, the night includes twilight. When dawn and dusk are
added to the daytime instead, the day would be almost 13 hours.   and that's for the equator, I'm half way up..!)*

The last day of summer was today, the way I figure.  Autumn didn't officially roll in until an hour or so before sunset.  No matter, my mindset was already there. I spent the day dyeing and it was autumn as inspiration.  The colors are changing.  I see it reflected in the pond and across the hills.

Fall is my favorite season.  The apples are sweet, the air is crisp and the smell of woodsmoke starts creeping in.  Wool feels right. 

I found this other little bit while poking around.  I suppose I never gave it much thought.

It is 94 days from the June solstice to the September equinox, but only 89 days from the December Solstice to the March equinox.*

Apparently the seasons aren't fairly distributed, summer IS longer than winter. Remind me of that little tidbit next winter. It sure doesn't feel like it around here. 

and so it goes…

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equinox

there'll be plenty of work this weekend..

I think I'll get some music together and take it with me to the shop, put the speakers in the window and a chair outside the door for breaks.  Maybe something to drink.