First Day of Fall - 2008

The first day of fall, or the “Autumnal Equinox” for 2008, begins on Monday, September 22nd. (and for those who can never get enough information, or are Jeopardy Junkies, it occurs at 11:44:16 EDT)

Fall has always been my favorite time of year. To me, fall seems as if it is a time of slowing down. The slowing of our frenzied life of summer, when the eve’s begin to get cool. It’s a time for opening the window while you’re sleeping and listening to the crickets instead of the hum of the heater or the air conditioner. It’s a time of balance, where the world stands still for a moment, the moment between growth and death. It’s a maturing time, when the soil seems to hold a special loam and the richness of the leaves and even the air that we breath has a musky yet snappy smell, that tells you “time has passed and the world is about to sleep.”

The date of the Autumnal Equinox (near September 22 in the northern hemisphere) is when night and day are nearly of the same length and Sun crosses the celestial equator (i.e., declination 0) moving southward (in the northern hemisphere). In the southern hemisphere, the autumnal equinox corresponds to the center of the Sun crossing the celestial equator moving northward and occurs on the date of the northern vernal equinox. The autumnal equinox marks the first day of the season of autumn.

The table below gives the universal time of the autumnal equinox. To convert to U. S. Eastern daylight saving time, subtract 4 hours, so the autumnal equinox occurs at September 23, 1998 at 1:34 a.m. EDT; September 23, 1999 at 07:23 a.m. EDT; and September 22, 2000 at 13:11 (1:11 p.m.).

Date	UT	Date	UT	Date	UT
09-22-1980	21:01	09-23-1990	07:06	09-22-2000	17:11
09-23-1981	02:50	09-23-1991	12:54	09-22-2001	23:00
09-23-1982	08:38	09-22-1992	18:43	09-23-2002	04:48
09-23-1983	14:27	09-23-1993	00:32	09-23-2003	10:37
09-22-1984	20:15	09-23-1994	06:20	09-22-2004	16:25
09-23-1985	02:04	09-23-1995	12:09	09-22-2005	22:14
09-23-1986	07:52	09-22-1996	17:57	09-23-2006	04:02
09-23-1987	13:41	09-22-1997	23:46	09-23-2007	09:51
09-22-1988	19:29	09-23-1998	05:34	09-22-2008	15:39
09-23-1989	01:18	09-23-1999	11:23	09-22-2009	21:28

Regardless of how science interprets this event, autumn is finally here..

Happy First Day of Fall!

Walter

Sources & References:

United States Government Printing Office. The Astronomical Almanac for the Year 1999. Washington, DC: Navy Dept., Naval Observatory, Nautical Almanac Office, p. A1, 1999.

United States Government Printing Office. The Astronomical Almanac for the Year 2000. Washington, DC: Navy Dept., Naval Observatory, Nautical Almanac Office, p. A1, 2000.

U. S. Naval Observatory Astronomical Applications Department. "Earth's Seasons, Equinoxes, Solstices, Perihelion, and Aphelion 1992-2020." http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/EarthSeasons.html.