Monday night around 11:00 p.m. Anchorage time, about an hour before we landed, I happened to look out the window of the plane. I was looking eastward and saw something I didn’t expect – at our altitude of about 34,000′ I could see what looked like dawn breaking on the horizon.
I sat there and thought about time, and pondered the rotation and curvature of the Earth at these more northerly latitudes. I am used to 37 degrees north latitude. Anchorage is at 61 degrees north. Brooks Camp in Katmai National Park, where I will be spending the summer, is around 58 degrees north. I have flown at night at the mid-latitudes of the southern mainland US and also of Hawaii, and have never seen the dawn light in the sky in the middle of the night.
The image with this post was photographed this evening at 9:33 p.m. from my motel room window. Time of sunset was 9:57 p.m.
It is only April 28th, with almost 8 weeks to go until the summer solstice. I wonder what the night sky will be like on that day.
