Friday, December 20, 2013

Winter Solstice

This is one of my favorite graphics (www.gaisma.com) which shows the path of the sun in Fairbanks, AK.  The red line is today near the winter solstice which I believe is tomorrow, 12-21-13. As you can see, it is pretty much rising and setting in the southern sky with sunrise at 10:58am and sunset at 2:40pm and climbs only a few degrees above the horizon. The black line is the path of the sun during the equinox and the inner gray circle is the summer solstice showing sunrise and sunset in the northern sky. After tomorrow, the days will start to get longer again!

Yesterday was the first time in weeks when I pulled off the carb bowls and didn't find any trace of water. I'm not sure what changed. Maybe I just picked up a bad batch of gas at some point in time. The Heet didn't seem to be doing the job of absorbing the water so I added some Stabil which may have done the trick. The temperatures have been pretty moderate at around 0°F so no problem at all getting back and forth to work on the sidecar rig. 

16 comments:

  1. Richard, do you keep the tank full or near full usually? I am told that when its less than full, water will condense within the tank? Glad the stabil is doing the trick.

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    1. The range is about 150 miles and I generally refill around 100 miles. So not completely empty. The Sta-bill seems to work pretty good. No water in the carb bowls again this evening.

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    2. Richard;

      I'm feeling so stupid. I can't figure out that graphic so I'll come back and stare at it again later

      bob
      Riding the Wet Coast

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    3. The large circle is the horizon with north on top and south on the bottom. The red arc shows the path of the sun. It just goes inside the circle between sunrise at about 155° and sunset at about 200°. The upper/inner grey circle shows the path of the sun at the Summer solstice and since it is inside the larger circle, it is above the horizon for most of the day. The concentric circles inside the yellow circle shows elevation above the horizon.

      Hope that helps...

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    4. Richard:

      I think your graphic is too small. I tried to click on it but it's still small.

      in the meantime I'm getting a headache from staring

      bob
      Riding the Wet Coast

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    5. Sorry about the headache. The graphic was just a screen capture from the site as all of the graphics are generated on the fly.

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  2. You are such a geek. "As you can see..." Bollocks. It might just as easily be a diagram of the rise of the yuan as a trade currency instead of the Almighty Dollar.Or not.

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    1. Guilty as charged. Too many years teaching. You just can't see the laser pointer indicating points on the graphic. Then it would be obvious.

      It's really shows the relationship between the mean sea level in KW and oil production in China.

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  3. Range is 150 miles? Is that because of the sidecar? What was the range of the tug before?

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    1. Yes, I switch to reserve around 150 miles. Without the sidecar it was around 210 miles. On my trip to Talkeetna last summer, it went up to 170.

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  4. Isn't that great news? Can't wait for the days to get longer again. We have plus 9C (48F) in our neck of the woods, feels like spring already. Merry Christmas!

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    1. Looking forward to the longer days. I still don't care to ride after dark especially when there is a lot of traffic. Soon it'll still be daylight when I head home.

      +9°C really would feel tropical about now. Merry Christmas!

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  5. Yay! Today will be longer than yesterday ... the daylight part that is. :) It's with a great sigh of relief every winter that I mark this day.

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    1. Couldn't really tell that today was longer ;-)

      Too much snow. It's been coming down all day long.

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  6. Happy Solstice - and hooray for the days getting longer.

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    1. Yes! Longer days. Soon it won't be dark when heading home.

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