December 21
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December 21 Sun in Capricorn
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Winter Solstice

Solstice Science:
Why Winter Starts Dec. 21
Live Science - December 19, 2008

Fajada at winter solstice. Photo by Rolf Sinclair, Chevy Chase, MD

- www.txroadrunners.com/images/pics/PaintRockIn...
Dr. Bob Robbins, an astronomer with the department of Astronomy at the University of Texas, is also an Archeo-Astronomer; who helped identify Figure 7 pictured above, as a pictograph used as the winter solstice marker at Paint Rock. On the winter solstice, a ray of light caused by a crack in the rock overhead pierces the pictograph at the very center at exactly noon, local time. Mrs. Campbell says this only occurs during the winter solstice time but not at other times of year.


Newgrange (co. Meath, Ireland) is best known for the illumination of its passage and chamber by the winter solstice sun. Above the entrance to the passage at Newgrange there is a opening called a roof-box. Its purpose is to allow sunlight to penetrate the chamber on the shortest days of the year, around December 21, the winter solstice. At dawn, from December 19th to 23rd, a narrow beam of light penetrates the roof-box and reaches the floor of the chamber, gradually extending to the rear of the passage. As the sun rises higher, the beam widens within the chamber so that the whole room becomes dramatically illuminated. This event lasts for 17 minutes, beginning around 9am.
The webcast and an exhibition at the Brú na Bóinne Visitor Centre celebrates the Anniversary of the re-discovery of the Winter Solstice Phenomenon at Newgrange by Professor O’Kelly in 1967. The Winter Solstice event from inside the chamber at Newgrange
The webcast will be available on the Heritage Ireland website. The Office of Public Works will be providing also a live free to air broadcast of the event for anyone with a satellite dish.
Live streaming coverage of the
Newgrange Winter Solstice 2008 will be available here between 08:30 and 09:30 UTC on Sunday 21st December 2008.
To view the webcast you will require Windows Media Player. Click here to check your system.

https://www.servecast.com/opw/211208/index.html