At this time of year the sun lights up the countryside in early morning and late evening in a way that is unique. The light pours in from low in the northeastern and northwestern sky. This picture could not be taken at any other time, as the morning light is filtered through gaps in the woods to the northeast of where I live. It lights up strips and leaves the rest of the fields in shade.

A belated thanks to everyone who came to my talks and walks at the North Kent Walking Festival and the Travel Bookshop last week.

Jupiter’s orbit is outside earth’s and so moves through the night sky quite slowly, about one constellation per year.

Venus’ orbit is closer to the sun than ours and so its position in the sky changes quite rapidly. It spends about seven months as a bright object in the early evening sky, before disappearing behind the sun’s glare for about four months and then re-emerging in the early morning for seven months. It then repeats the cycle. Ancient civilisations were divided in their understanding of it, some realising that it is a planet and others giving it two labels, ‘morning star’ and ‘evening star’, without realising they were describing the same object.

One way to remember the order of our solar system is the mnemonic, My Very Educated Mother Just Showed Us Nine Planets  -  Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Although this old line is not perfect anymore as Pluto has now been demoted from planet status. Of these only Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn can be seen with the naked eye.

In this picture the horizon is well above sea level because of the hill, so we have to bear in mind that the angle the sun makes to the horizon will be 90 degrees minus our latitude, ie. our colatitude.