View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Raul Cortes in Monterrey, Mexico created this private solstices composite from pictures captured on December 22, 2021. He wrote: “Mountain and sun attended their annual winter solstice reunion. The sun showed over the Horse Saddle Hill exactly in the middle of the saddle on December 22 for this 2021 solstice, as seen from El Obispado Hill in Monterrey, Mexico. Once again, they met together on this day, as they did last year and will do next year.” Thank you, Raul!
View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Rick Williams of Woodland, California, wrote in December 2020: “This was taken one day before last year’s solstice, at noon. I have a small mirror in front of my house, which reflects the sun onto my outside wall. Every day, I mark the reflection on the wall exactly at noon, which delineates an analemma over the course of a year. It took me a couple of years to get it done. Since the sun is lower in the sky, its reflection is lower on the wall. At the solstice (sol = sun, sistere = to stand still), the sun seems to pause and reverse its course. It is directly overhead at noon at 23.5 deg S, Tropic of Capricorn.” Thank you Rick!View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Markham Starr captured this picture on the 2019 December solstice, in North Stonington, Connecticut. He wrote: “Native American winter solstice sunrise wall. Sun rises over the next hilltop 7/10ths of a mile away. There is a spring right where the sun rises over that ridge line, so the sun also rises over water.” Thank you Markham!View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Leslie Scopes-Anderson in Cooperstown, New York, captured this picture on the December 2017 solstice. She wrote: “Sunset on a frozen pond shows the returning of the light.” Thank you, Leslie!Judy Glattstein in New Jersey wrote in 2016, “Houses here are spread apart. No chimneys, no standing stones. But in the cold of a solstice morning the trees serve to define the rising of the sun.” Thank you, Judy!These subsequent few are all about shadows. Ben Orlove wrote in 2016: “On the mornings close to the winter solstice, when the sun’s course is at its lowest and southernmost, the shadow of a chimney across the street from my building falls directly on the peak of the adjacent roof and lands on the wall next to it. Our own Stonehenge!” Thank you, Ben! Read more about this image.Capturing the yr’s longest noontime shadow – December 21, 2016 – in Hyderabad, India. Photo by PadmaSri Naidu.Athens, Greece, at midday on the day of the solstice – December 21, 2016 – by Nikolaos Pantazis. Notice the lengthy shadows!View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Wells Shoemaker captured this picture on the day of the December solstice in 2005 in Death Valley National Park. He mentioned: “The Eureka Dunes, rising 750 feet (230 meters) above the desert floor, are among the tallest in North America. The low solstice sun casts the longest shadows of the year.” Thanks, Wells!
Bottom line: Personal solstices – images from the EarthSky group world wide – exhibiting what the December solstice means to them.
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