Whoops! If I've got it right, right at the pole, the height above the horizon wouldn't change (much) per day, the sun would just follow a circular path around. It's only when you go lower do you see up and down motion.


-Richard

Great Thanks, but how many times did you watch the "midnight Sun" at the Arctic Circle at Summer Solstice so as to be sure that the term "midnight Sun" has nothing to do with the darkness of the real night or at least with the real dusk?

I've seen it 3 times, on a vacation to Alaska. Trust me, it is not dark or even dusk. It is the equivalent of sunset (while the sun is still up), and the sun dips down without ever actually dropping below the horizon.

The path is shown by this illustration

Why do you not believe us?

As for midnight, that has nothing to do with the middle of the night. It is simply a time, like noon. It is simply 12AM local time, and the sun is up at that time in the arctic near the summer solstice. It is as simple as that.

So you're in a cave and don't want to believe descriptions of the world outside the cave? Well, why don't you experience it for youself. Take a trip to the high latitudes and see it for yourself.

Put "midnight sun photos" in Google and you'll find all sorts of pictures, even some neat time-exposure ones showing the sun's path, going down to a low, then turning back up. But, I guess you could say that was photoshopped or something. <sigh>

-Richard

I'm not sure, but it was used as a clever phrase. Poetic, not literal. Figurative speech. An oxymoron, because the two terms "midnight" and "sun", although not opposites, are mutually exclusive in most cases.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_sun

This article has some information about the figurative midnight sun. I understand you didn't want links, but when I don't know, I google.

Read the part about St. Petersburg toward the bottom of the article.

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Attiyah Zadeh, I am not sure what you hope to accomplish here. If you are interested in the subject, I suggest you spend some time learning about it. Then, if you have questions, please feel free to return and ask.

The responces are getting a bit caustic, so take a break from the thread guys.

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And in multiple languages, no doubt.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

It's an interesting issue, linguistically. From what I found, most European language use "midnight sun" like in English.

Another interesting pattern, which is used in Japanese is "white night." I think the Japanese comes from Russian, because in Russian I'm pretty sure it's also "white night." I looked it up on Wikipedia but I'm not that good at Russian. It's Бяла нощ, which I think transliterates as byala nosch, which I think means "white night." I think that's quite a beautiful term for the phenomenon.

And in Chinese, if I read it correctly, they use something that means "Arctic day".

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Hello Duane,
Please inform those whose responses are caustic that Attiyah is sure that, in respect to the Arctic Circle at Summer Solstice, the phenomenon of the midnight Sun means a real sunny midnight.

Hello Faultline,

Respecting the Summer Solstice day at the Arctic Circle, the term 'midnight Sun" is not at all an oxymoron term. At the Arctic Circle itself at the time of the Summer Solstice itself, the midnight Sun means a real sunny midnight.

Hello CJL,
I trust that you have seen the "midnight Sun" 3 times but not on the Arctic Circle on the Summer Solstice.

It seems like Attiyah is trying to set up a straw man argument. Just a question... something that has never been answered, Attiyah, throughout your various locked threads: how many times have you, Attiyah, witnessed the "never-ending sun" (my new phrase which can not be used by anyone who is not me, so said by myself, which is me) which is repeatedly referenced by the "Attiyah Sun Theory" and the "Blueness of the Sky is Caused By the Ozone" post? How many times have you been to the extreme upper or lower latitudes to witness this effect, and thus provide counter-examples to those who have? So far there have been many replies from persons who have visited the regions near the Arctic (or Antarctic) whose testimony refutes every one of your claims.

Are you suggesting that this "sunny midnight" of yours occurs only if one is precisely on the Arctic Circle? To within what tolerance? 100km, 10km, 1m, 1cm? By setting the tolerance very low, you would ensure that people are unable to refute or confirm your hypothesis by direct observation, since perhaps no-one alive today would have ever been in the right place at the right time.
But then you'd have to explain why "midnight sun" is in such common usage, if the phenomenon itself is so extremely difficult to observe.
And you'd also have to explain how, according to your hypothesis, if I were to walk across the Arctic Circle at midnight on the solstice, the sky could change colour from blue to black to blue again, over a very short distance, with the sun in the sky all the time. And why the sky is not black when the sun's disc is visible in the sky on every other observed occasion, both below and above the Arctic Circle.

Grant Hutchison

Not to mention why the term so long predates polar exploration.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Have any of you ever seen Attiyah Zahdeh?
Please do not attach any pictures of this meeting.

*** oh I just could not help myself ***

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道德經, 二十七 (dào dé jīng, 27)

So you're claiming that, if the observer is standing on the arctic circle line, and the date is the summer solstice, that the sky will be as dark as a normal midnight anywhere else and the sun will be visible.

Now that you have made a claim, it is up to you to prove it. You cannot shift the burden of proof to us. In other words, we don't have to prove you wrong, you have to prove you are right.

Got any evidence?

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Do you agree that the dusk is a real part of the night?

No I do not agree. Besides, I define "dusk" as the time while the sun is below the horizon, but the sky is still lit by its indirect light. It never reaches dusk on the arctic circle during the day of the Summer solstice.

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Midnight means 00.00z - ie a period of time exactly 12 hours before/after midday.

Midnight Sun refers to the sun still being on or above the horizon at 00.00z

When the sun is on or above the horizon - regardless of what time of day it is - we experience daylight (okay, unless there's an eclipse )

On the 21st June, the sun will on on, or above, the horizon at 00.00z at all place on or north of the arctic circle. These regions therefore experience 24 hours of daylight.

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Andy

Manager Ukweatherworld

It's debatable: if "night" is defined as the period between sunset and sunrise, then dusk is part of the night. If "night" does not include the two twilight periods (before sunrise and after sunset), as it does in some civil and astronomical definitions, then "night" does not include dusk.
It has no relevance to Faultline's question either way, however, because "dusk" occurs after the sun sets, as Faultline points out, so the condition "midnight sun" excludes the condition "dusk".

Can you please specify how close to the Arctic Circle, how close to midnight and how close to the solstice we would have to make our observations in order to see your "sunny midnight"?

Grant Hutchison

In Finland most used term is "nightless night". Though "midnight sun" is beeing used often also.

Yes, byala noshch. They talk about "white nights" in St Petersburg during the summer. St Petersburg is at 60 N, so the sun is below the horizon at midnight, but the sky is bright with pale blue twilight all night: you can walk around without really needing street lighting.
I've always imagined that the phrase "white night" referred specifically to this phenomenon: the sun sets, but there is an absence of real night because the twilight persists until sunrise. But that may just be my interpretation: I've no evidence that Russians at higher latitudes don't use the same phrase to describe the midnight sun.

Grant Hutchison

Attiyah, can Iask why you don't want to be given any refs or links to look at to explain this?

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I was about 100 miles north of the Antarctic Circle when I took this picture around midnight. Since I didn't cross the Antarctic Circle, the Sun did set, but it never sank low enough below the horizon for it to get dark.

Because of camera settings, this picture looks darker than I remember it being.

No, it wasn't exactly on the arctic circle on the solstice. It was a couple weeks after solstice, and around 80 miles north of the circle. The sun just kissed the horizon before rising again.

Is there any reason it would be different 80 miles south and a couple weeks before?

Hello Captain Swoop,
Please give what you find necessary.

That is one really nice picture. Thanks for sharing.

============
Hello Grant Hutchison,

Please read this:


"Here in Anchorage Alaska, it just barely gets dark as the sun dips below the horizon in the middle of the night during the summer. But we wanted to see the real midnight sun. So the day before solstice this year, we packed up our van and drove about 500 miles to a spot where, thanks to its higher latitude and altitude, you can see the real thing. Eagle Summit reaches the highest elevation on the Steese Highway, a mostly gravel road northeast of Fairbanks. In that magic place, on June 21st, we saw the sun at midnight as it "touched" the horizon but did not set in the southern sky. To the north there was a nearly full moon, both orbs shining brightly in the dusky midnight sky".

What do you conclude, Grant?

I don't know where you got this, but they have the direction wrong. The Sun would be just above the northern horizon at midnight, and the full moon just above the southern horizon in the scenario you suggest. The Sun would be above the horizon for the entire day but the Moon would be above the southern horizon only for a few hours. Note that the sky is described as "dusky", that is, as bright as dusk. (Which is pretty bright near sunrise/sunset!)

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