![]() ![]() For December’s efforts, there will be the Geminid meteor shower brightening the sky, reaching its peak on the 14th of December. ![]() A blue moon, for anyone not in the know, is when you get a full moon twice in the same month. In October, we were treated to 40 days of Mars being as close to the Earth as it’ll be for the next 150 years and we even had a ‘blue moon’ on Halloween, spooky. I often tell my guests when we’re out searching for the Northern Lights, “Don’t forget the stars while looking to the heavens.” It sounds stupid but in a country with so little unnatural light thanks to the low population density it is too often overlooked as a prime star gazing location. So maybe, nearing the solstice, all that extra night-time to play with will allow focus on something else as well…the stars and the planets. Don’t ask me why, but there is a significant statistical correlation. In fact, you’re slightly more likely to see the Northern Lights in September, October and March, despite the shorter night hours. But considering the Northern Lights are elusive and fleeting, it’s not exactly something we locals expect or yearn for at the end of each day. You probably thought I would talk predominantly about the Northern Lights in this post. So I thought this month’s blog post could be about the lighter side of the darkest days of the year and what makes them so special (pun intended). In fact, we celebrate it! My colleagues and I prefer this time of year for many reasons and actually it is one of the most popular times of the year for us when running tours. So how do we cope I hear you ask? It must be so hard to get anything done, no? Well actually, coping is not a word that is generally used when referring to this time of the year. Sadly, it’ll be late February before we start to get anything close to a normal day of sunlight. It sticks around that number until New Year and then you gain around 5 minutes of daylight per day all the way up to the days of the midnight sun on the 21st of June. On the darkest day of the year, the 21st of December, direct sunlight will drop below 4 hours. The sun didn’t rise until 11:16 today and will say good bye at 15:30. Don’t forget the stars while looking to the heavens.Īs I write this, on the 13th of December, I am squeezed into the few daylight hours left in Iceland.
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