• Mark Lovewell

Vineyard Skies: Return to Standard Time

Sunday brings the end to Daylight Saving Time and clocks will fall back an hour.

Seth Thomas, resident of Oak Bluffs, used to call the Vineyard Gazette newsroom in the autumn to remind us not to turn an old clock back an hour. Doing so might damage the inner mechanism. Rather, Mr. Thomas suggested we turn a clock forward 11 hours.

Gaining another hour in the morning will be costly later in the day. On Sunday the sun sets at 4:34 p.m. Sunsets from now until early February will be after 4 p.m.

Mars and Venus

On Monday morning, well before sunrise, look for Venus low in the southeastern skies. Venus is about one degree away from the red planet Mars. The two are in the zodiacal constellation Leo. Both are below the planet Jupiter.

Only a few days ago Venus was high in the east, above Mars and above Jupiter. The brightest planet, Venus is now slowly descending in our eastern sky. Venus will remain our early morning planet for the months ahead, but it will not be rising in the eastern sky at 3 a.m. in the morning and appearing so high in the east at sunrise.

Venus is 63 million miles away and moving ahead of and away from the Earth in its orbit around the Sun.
 

Sunrise and Sunset
Day Sunrise Sunset
Fri., Oct. 30 7:10 5:39
Sat., Oct. 31 7:12 5:38
Sun., Nov. 1 6:13 4:36
Mon., Nov. 2 6:14 4:35
Tues., Nov. 3 6:15 4:34
Wed., Nov. 4 6:16 4:33
Thurs., Nov. 5 6:18 4:31
Fri., Nov. 6 6:19 4:30
Temperatures and Precipitation
Day Max (Fº) Min (Fº) Inches
Oct. 23 68 50 0.01
Oct. 24 57 47 0.00
Oct. 25 59 48 0.00
Oct. 26 62 46 0.00
Oct. 27 55 32 0.00
Oct. 28 58 40 0.00
Oct. 29 66 54 1.14

 

Water temperature in Edgartown harbor: 59º F

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