by Charles
I was driving home from the office the other day, taking the semi-scenic route, and noticed a highly unusual sunset. I'm not sure if the picture does it justice, but looks like a regular sunset at the left and a second one--about half as strong--at the right. The photo was taken from Scoop Jackson's extended front yard.
The foreground is Naval Station Everett, home to the USS Abraham Lincoln, and further back is Puget Sound, Whidbey Island and the Olympic mountain range. Here's a close-up of the faux sunset.
The above photo is in the direction of Sequim, which is in the Olympic mountain rain shadow and gets about 10 inches of a rain per year, and past Sequim is the Strait of Wanda Fuca*. There must have been a hole in the clouds that created this effect. Anyway, in all my years in the Seattle area, I'd never seen anything like this before.
* The phonetic spelling of Juan de Fuca is a family joke.
beautiful
Posted by: SomeOtherDude | February 22, 2007 at 12:28 PM
Once when I was driving home from Palm Springs, there was a white cloud over the mountain as I was driving toward the pass. The sun was setting about 10 degrees to my left. About 30 degrees to my left and about 30 degrees above the horizon was a black storm layer with white clouds above it. It looked like the sun was setting over the horizon and the black cloud at the same time. Very beautiful.
Posted by: Sebastian Holsclaw | February 22, 2007 at 12:36 PM
Some day, may past wrongs be righted, and the Canadian flag once more proudly flutter over our lost San Juan Islands.
In the meantime, at least we control land access to Point Roberts. Mmwaa ha ha.
Posted by: double-plus-ungood | February 22, 2007 at 12:37 PM
An area of the country I have loved. I have seen sunsets from the Pacific coast of the peninsula, but never seen one like this. It is gorgeous. It almost seems a shame that someone will give a very dry scientific explanation for this.
Posted by: john miller | February 22, 2007 at 12:37 PM
Isn't there a Pink Floyd or maybe Roger Waters song on a related theme?
Posted by: rilkefan | February 22, 2007 at 12:38 PM
It was just our normal two suns setting, Charles: what are you on about, with your delusion that we only have a single sun?
The depth you conservative Republicans will go to to deny reality is simply astonishing: writing as if we had only one sun! Humpf!
Also: there are four lights.
(I remain very fond of the Olympics, and Cascades, and Rainier in the distance on a clear day, but we had wonderful pinks over the Front Range yesterday evening, as the sun(s) sat.)
Posted by: Gary Farber | February 22, 2007 at 12:38 PM
Oops, make that second to last link this one. Mmwaaa ha etc.
Posted by: double-plus-ungood | February 22, 2007 at 12:39 PM
Lovely, Charles, thanks.
On my one week-long visit to Seattle, there were such breathtaking sunsets that I wondered if locals weren't a little jaded. Encouraging to see it ain't so.
Posted by: Nell | February 22, 2007 at 12:46 PM
The skies over Seattle can put on astonishing shows.
Most of our early-evening (or late-afternoon) winter darkness isn't the early sunset so much as it is the heavy cloud cover. The sun is there; we just don't get to see it. There have been a few times, coming north on the freeway, when I'd look west and see a break in the winter clouds: literally a tunnel through darkness, through which one could see, as if through a vortex into an alternate universe, the sun shining.
Posted by: CaseyL | February 22, 2007 at 12:51 PM
Your first link is broken too, D-P-U.
Methinks you meant to link to the 1st War That Nearly Ended Bacon.
Posted by: spartikus | February 22, 2007 at 12:54 PM
Your first link is broken too, D-P-U.
Gah! Stupid lack of caffeine. And yes, the link was supposed to go to the Pig War article.
Posted by: double-plus-ungood | February 22, 2007 at 12:58 PM
After Lyman Cutlar shot the pig, he cooked and ate it, and thus invented Canadian Bacon.
Okay, not true, but it could have been.
Posted by: Gary Farber | February 22, 2007 at 01:04 PM
come to New Mexico, we get those every evening and sunrises to take your breath away..
Posted by: judson | February 22, 2007 at 01:33 PM
Okay, not true, but it could have been.
good enough for the conservapedia. send it in!
Posted by: cleek | February 22, 2007 at 01:37 PM
cleek, is that conservapedia for real, or some sort of elaborate spoof? It's so hard to tell anymore. Either way, it's pretty damn funny. I love the Examples of bias in Wikipedia page. Wikipedia is anti-American because the entries occasionally use British spellings (e.g. Most Favoured Nation)! The nerve!
Posted by: Larv | February 22, 2007 at 03:07 PM
Gary,
I know we've had our differences in the past, and I hesitate to challenge your vast encyclopedic knowledge, but I'm going to have to depart from you on this whole "two sun" idea. This may be the right-wing ideologue in me talking, but I'm going to have to side with those one-sunners, despite the overwhelming photographic evidence.
Posted by: Charles Bird | February 22, 2007 at 03:18 PM
cleek, is that conservapedia for real, or some sort of elaborate spoof?
it's real, but i suspect there's a lot of spoofed articles in there. some of it is just too crazy to be real.
ScienceBlogs.com has been going to town on a lot of the wacky 'science' there, since so much of it is just plain ridculous.
here's a bit from their article on relativity:
Nothing useful has even been built based on the theory of relativity. Albert Einstein's work had nothing to do with the development of the atomic bomb, contrary to popular opinion. Only one Nobel Prize has ever been given (in 1993) that relates to relativity, and the validity of that particular award is questionable.
...
Just as "social Darwinism" arose from Darwinism, many seized upon the theory of relativity to apply it in a vague way to morality and social issues. "All things are relative" became popular as atheists and others used relativity to attack Christian values. There remains enormous political support for the theory of relativity that has nothing to do with physics, and Congress continues to spend billions of dollars unsuccessfully searching for particles predicted by the theory of relativity.
it's at least more informative than their entry of evolution.
either someone is having a lot of fun making fun of (the anti-science branch of) conservative attitudes, or this country's in worse shape than i could have ever imagined.
Posted by: cleek | February 22, 2007 at 03:21 PM
Sunsets. Bah. You west-coasters get the sun after we’re pretty much done with it out here on the east coast. We get the sunrise when its all shiny and new and hasn’t traversed ‘fly-over country’ yet. Sunset is like leftovers.
Seriously – nice pix Charles.
Posted by: OCSteve | February 22, 2007 at 03:28 PM
Don't you have to get up early to see a sunrise? I don't get up early. Sounds like a useless East Coast pretentsion.... Hmmm, maybe I could stay up to see a sunrise....
Posted by: Sebastian Holsclaw | February 22, 2007 at 04:04 PM
I love the Examples of bias in Wikipedia page.
I also like how the examples bias don't link to the Wikipedia entry, but to their own entry. Nothing like letting people judge for themselves.
Posted by: spartikus | February 22, 2007 at 04:11 PM
Charles: these are really nice. What kind of camera were you using?
Posted by: hilzoy | February 22, 2007 at 04:14 PM
Hil,
Sony Cybershot, 5.1 megapixels. It's not my favorite camera but it does the job. The focus is a little tricky and the accompanying software is awful, so I use Adobe instead.
Posted by: Charles Bird | February 22, 2007 at 04:20 PM
rilkefan--
Actually the Pink Floyd song mentions that the second sunset is directly ahead of him (which makes me think the character in the song is driving east on the M4 towards London).
Nuking the San Juan islands seems to be a bit of a waste to me.
Posted by: JakeB | February 22, 2007 at 04:21 PM
Anyway, in all my years in the Seattle area, I'd never seen anything like this before.
And that's saying something because when it's not raining we have some great sunsets in spring and summer
Posted by: Fledermaus | February 22, 2007 at 04:32 PM
Charles Bird:
Charles, it's just typical of you that you'd act as if you were some sort of sun expert, when you've simply lived with sun all your life. Have you ever walked on even one of our suns? Let alone gone deeper into a sun, penetrating beneath the photosphere!?He may even want to commit war crimes, by using white phosphorous on one of the suns!
Why, you probably don't even know what a chromosphere is, let alone visited one, even briefly!
And yet you feel qualified to pronounce that we have only one sun, and not two! Your arrogance simply knows no bounds; you should be ashamed of yourself for blogging on solar topics.
JakeB: "Nuking the San Juan islands seems to be a bit of a waste to me."
Perhaps, but I bet Charles wants to nuke one of our two suns, so his claim that we have only one sun will appear to be true: these conservatives always go for the military solution first, you know.
Posted by: Gary Farber | February 22, 2007 at 04:35 PM
For the record, that should have read:
Charles Bird:
Charles, it's just typical of you that you'd act as if you were some sort of sun expert, when you've simply lived with sun all your life. Have you ever walked on even one of our suns? Let alone gone deeper into a sun, penetrating beneath the photosphere!?Why, you probably don't even know what a chromosphere is, let alone visited one, even briefly!
And yet you feel qualified to pronounce that we have only one sun, and not two! Your arrogance simply knows no bounds; you should be ashamed of yourself for blogging on solar topics.
JakeB: "Nuking the San Juan islands seems to be a bit of a waste to me."
Perhaps, but I bet Charles wants to nuke one of our two suns, so his claim that we have only one sun will appear to be true: these conservatives always go for the military solution first, you know.
He may even want to commit war crimes, by using white phosphorous on one of our suns!
Posted by: Gary Farber | February 22, 2007 at 04:38 PM
Very nice pictures -- that is a tough photographic subject.
The phenomena is a . There can be two -- one on each side of the sun, but the sky has to have the right conditions. Here is a better explanation of them.
Posted by: dmbeaster | February 22, 2007 at 04:57 PM
oops -- screwed up the post. It's a Sun Dog.
There are a number of possible arcs and parhelia around the sun created by different shaped ice crystals in the high atmosphere. Here is a short analysis of them all -- rings and sun dogs are the most common.
There is a famous picture taken at the South Pole in which all of the major arcs or parhelia are visible, but I have not found it on the web yet. It is in the phenomenal book Color and Light in Nature which was recommended by Galen Rowell, one of the really great nature photographers.
Posted by: dmbeaster | February 22, 2007 at 05:08 PM
here is a famous picture taken at the South Pole in which all of the major arcs or parhelia are visible, but I have not found it on the web yet
this one?
Posted by: cleek | February 22, 2007 at 05:10 PM
Well, here is another good collection of photos as well as a drawing of the famous picture (at the bottom). The link, however, to the actual picture does not work for me. Maybe I need better software, or maybe the site is broken.
Posted by: dmbeaster | February 22, 2007 at 05:22 PM
cleek:
That is a nice one, but not the one I am familiar with. I linked to a drawing of it, but the further link to the picture itself does not work for me.
The number of arcs in the picture are astonishing.
Posted by: dmbeaster | February 22, 2007 at 05:24 PM
cleek, is that conservapedia for real, or some sort of elaborate spoof? It's so hard to tell anymore.
It's by the Schlafly clan, who basically have had their sense of humors removed at birth.
Posted by: gwangung | February 22, 2007 at 05:30 PM
Charles, thank you for sharing that. Gorgeous stuff. One of the ongoing delights for me of living by the Sound is this phenomenally dense, complex weather, very unlike the Southern California stuff I grew up with.
Dmbeaster, thank you for sharing the explanation! For me, at least, knowing what's going on adds a layer of appreciation rather than taking one away.
Posted by: Bruce Baugh | February 22, 2007 at 05:31 PM
OK -- finally found a link for one of the South Pole arc pictures that works.
Enjoy
Posted by: dmbeaster | February 22, 2007 at 05:41 PM
"It's by the Schlafly clan, who basically have had their sense of humors removed at birth."
The rant about the evils of using "Common Era" and "Before Common Era," instead of "Anno Domini" for "the year of the Lord," and "B.C." for "Before Christ" wasn't one I've seen much of before. I guess all us non-Christians should just get with the program, and be Christian: why must we be so unreasonable, and blasphemous, about this?
Doubtless the Hebrew calendar is also "anti-Christian." All non-Christianity is inherently "anti-Christian." To these people.
Posted by: Gary Farber | February 22, 2007 at 05:45 PM
I bet Charles wants to nuke one of our two suns, so his claim that we have only one sun will appear to be true: these conservatives always go for the military solution first, you know.
Gary has it backwards. Our mission is to bomb other innocent planets in order to create a second Sun.
Lucifer the Light!
Posted by: DaveC | February 22, 2007 at 05:51 PM
Now, c'mon Gary, when have I ever claimed expertise in our sun, let alone chromosphere. But I will say this, I do favor a massive strike of that suspicous-looking second sun before it becomes an imminent threat. After all, if we don't take action sooner, we may emboldening it to emit even more radiation.
Posted by: Charles Bird | February 22, 2007 at 06:05 PM
The most righteous sunset I've ever experienced was driving west on I-80 approaching Gary, Indiana with those long miles of industrial smokestacks all the way to Chicago.
I was in favor of air pollution for about an hour.
The sunset was riotus and multicolored with fire orange and turquoise predominant but there were enough colors to resemble the worst bruise you've ever had. The writer Cormac McCarthy would have to be on peyote and tequila to adequately describe it.
Off topic -- but the Judge in the Anna Nicole Smith case has ruled that her body shall be interred in HIS cemetery plot, between him and his wife.
The man had a major breakdown on television. FOX or Court T.V. needs to give him his own show (I predict it), in which he breaks down in sobs as he adjudicates traffic violations.
So, what is it about Broward County, Florida?
Will the Apocalypse occur there soon? Is it part of the Bermuda Triangle? Presidential crackups, terrorist proving ground, funky voting machines and now the center of the lowest of American culture.
Posted by: John Thullen | February 22, 2007 at 06:09 PM
the center of the lowest of American culture.
I thought that was Graceland.
Posted by: Ugh | February 22, 2007 at 06:19 PM
Charles: "But I will say this, I do favor a massive strike of that suspicous-looking second sun before it becomes an imminent threat. After all, if we don't take action sooner, we may emboldening it to emit even more radiation."
Clearly we should first open diplomatic negotiations with the second sun, both direct, and multilateral, on acceptable radiation levels.
The multilateral negotiations will be aided by our recent redefinition of "planetoids," so now we will have hundreds of small planetoids on our side.
Some say we should respect only the views of so-called "Old Planets" in the solar system, but the applause with which our redefinition has been met clearly demonstrates that the "New Planetoids" will be excellent allies against any and all opposing suns.
I greatly fear that the second sun is pursuing fusion technology. This must not be allowed!
Also, it's believed to be meddling in Mercury. And it is alleged that the school the second sun went to when very young was a madrassah.
Posted by: Gary Farber | February 22, 2007 at 06:26 PM
I greatly fear that the second sun is pursuing fusion technology. This must not be allowed!
Also, it's believed to be meddling in Mercury. And it is alleged that the school the second sun went to when very young was a madrassah.
Exactly
We should be responding quietly, killing radical atomic processes and second sun fusion scientists, supporting the simmering insurgencies within the second sun, putting the atomic processes' first sun business interests out of business, etc.
Posted by: Ugh | February 22, 2007 at 06:38 PM
Thanks for sharing. I live in the Puget Sound area, and have appreciated many sunsets here, but have been ill most of the past week and missed this one(s). I was going to snark you for misspelling Juan de Fuca, but I see that's unnecessary.
Posted by: Becky | February 22, 2007 at 09:24 PM
I like the backside of sunsets, the east side. Out here the sunset backside is awesome, with alpinglow on Mt. Rainier and the Cascades.
There are a lot of Puget Sound area folks in the ObWi commentariat.
Posted by: wonkie (lily) | February 22, 2007 at 10:28 PM
Speaking of bad science, Talking Points Memo recently linked to fixedearth.com in a "cultural conservatives say the darnedest things" post about a GA State House Representative whose staffer or associate sent out a letter endorsing the site in the Representative's name. I only skimmed a couple of pages, but so far the site is pretty breathtaking in its ability to combine scientific illiteracy with thinly-veiled anti-Semitism.
Posted by: Gromit | February 22, 2007 at 11:12 PM
Posted by: Larv | February 22, 2007 at 11:27 PM
There are a lot of Puget Sound area folks in the ObWi commentariat.
Maybe we should all get together sometime. Go hiking, or drinking, or hiking and then drinking. See if we can avoid talking about politics for a few hours.
Posted by: CaseyL | February 22, 2007 at 11:27 PM
Maybe we should all get together sometime. Go hiking, or drinking, or hiking and then drinking.
Or go see a show. Hey! Guess what! I have a show that's opening soon.
(Um, sorry. Won't happen again)
See if we can avoid talking about politics for a few hours.
Surely, you jest...
Posted by: gwangung | February 22, 2007 at 11:39 PM
gwangung, I clicked that link, thankyouverymuch, and am now gobsmacked.
Would someone not very conversant with Thai family culture get the jokes?
Posted by: CaseyL | February 22, 2007 at 11:48 PM
Would someone not very conversant with Thai family culture get the jokes?
Oh, yeah....it was written for a non-Thai (non Asian, actually) audience. There's Thai dialog, but the humor doesn't depend on it at all...
Posted by: gwangung | February 23, 2007 at 01:21 AM
There are a lot of Puget Sound area folks in the ObWi commentariat.
I've wondered how that happened.
Posted by: Fledermaus | February 23, 2007 at 01:55 AM
We are all above average!
Posted by: Jay S | February 23, 2007 at 02:37 AM
No, just the children.
But FWIW everyone go see gwangung's play
gwangung:
Looks like fun, I hope you got a good physical comedy director for it (I love physical comedy). And make sure you send a notice to The Stranger.
Posted by: Fledermaus | February 23, 2007 at 03:06 AM
I can't believe the thread has gone so far without anyone asking: Charles, how did you get to Tatooine?
Posted by: Alejandro | February 23, 2007 at 05:51 AM
There are a lot of Puget Sound area folks in the ObWi commentariat.
And at least two directly north of the Sound. Over the border, that is.
I've lived in Vancouver for almost forty years, and still haven't visited Seattle. Gotta get down there some day.
Posted by: double-plus-ungood | February 23, 2007 at 10:10 AM
I've lived in Vancouver for almost forty years, and still haven't visited Seattle.
Wow...that's incredible. There's good beer to be had in Seattle, d-p-u.
On the other hand, the recent and exponentially greater odds of a body cavity search at the border is....unappealing.
Posted by: spartikus | February 23, 2007 at 10:47 AM
I love Vancouver. I also love the islands in Canada. The American San JJuans are, in my opinionn, too crowded and too overrun with power boat people.
Paul and I go kayaking in the Canadian San Juans fairly frequently and we do vist-the-big-city trips to Vancouver to eat lots of ethnic foods and enyjoy the urban hikinng.
So I can see good reason to stay up thhere.
Hiking and drinkinng is always fun, provided it is done in that order.
I'd like to be a Cannadian. I have a bad case of Canada-envy.
Posted by: wonkie | February 23, 2007 at 11:08 AM
OK. I'm going to see the play. Anybody here want to come with me? I'll also ask my off-line friends if they're interested.
So far, any Friday or Saturday is fine (the play runs March 2 - 24).
Posted by: CaseyL | February 23, 2007 at 11:13 AM
Looks like fun, I hope you got a good physical comedy director for it (I love physical comedy). And make sure you send a notice to The Stranger.
Well,not quite as much physical stuff as in our sketch comedy shows, but there's fun enough to be had (borrowing some people from the Sex in Seattle series)(who took some of them from me, so I'm returning the favor).
Stuff went out to The Stranger. We'll see if they show up....
Posted by: gwangung | February 23, 2007 at 11:18 AM
Oh, and I don't mean porn when I mention Sex in Seattle , I mean this serial drama. Or this production company.
Posted by: gwangung | February 23, 2007 at 12:05 PM
I also love the islands in Canada.
The Gulf Islands are my idea of paradise and if I had the guts, I'd up and move. Unless you're rich or in a certain field (doctor, lawyer), though, island life usually consists of 2 to 3 [odd] jobs. A constant scramble for dough.
Posted by: spartikus | February 23, 2007 at 12:18 PM