The perfectly clear skies that have graced this area for the past few days clouded up this morning just as an important event was taking place – the moon setting in Monte Forato.
At 3 am this morning there were 4 photographers on hand at the Duomo in Barga Vecchia attempting to capture an image of the moon seen through the hole in the mountain ….. unfortunately, nature didn’t feel like cooperating as low cloud obscured the event just at the crucial moment.
The summer solstice occurs when the tilt of a planet’s semi-axis, in either the northern or the southern hemisphere, is most inclined toward the star (sun) that it orbits. Earth’s maximum axial tilt toward the sun is 23° 26′. This happens twice each year, at which times the sun reaches its highest position in the sky as seen from the north or the south pole.
The summer solstice occurs during a hemisphere’s summer. This is northern solstice in the northern hemisphere and the southern solstice in the southern hemisphere. Depending on the shift of the calendar, the summer solstice occurs some time between December 20 and December 23 each year in the southern hemisphere and between June 20 and June 22 in the northern hemisphere in reference to UTC.
Though the summer solstice is an instant in time, the term is also colloquially used like midsummer to refer to the day on which it occurs. The summer solstice occurs on the day that has the longest period of daylight – except in the polar regions, where daylight is continuous, from a few days to six months around the summer solstice.
Worldwide, interpretation of the event has varied among cultures, but most recognize the event in some way with holidays, festivals, and rituals around that time with themes of religion or fertility.
Solstice is derived from the Latin words sol (sun) and sistere (to stand still).