The seasons have officially changed – West Seattle’s NASA Solar System Ambassador Alice Enevoldsen has carried off yet another successful sunset watch, something she’s been doing for 20 equinoxes and solstices – that’s 5 years of season changes. At Solstice Park, she showed young attendees how to practice telescope/microscope techniques on tissue tubes. And when it was time to demonstrate what the equinox means to our planet, she had an even younger helper:

That’s Alice’s almost-3-year-old daughter Vera, who made a few orbits of the globe that Alice uses as a prop. The sunset, meantime, cooperated, and put on its own show:

Those, Alice explained, are crepuscular rays. The ~20 people who showed up tonight just got lucky with the sunset show.

In addition to her own website Alice’s Astro Info – where the summer-solstice sunset-viewing event is already scheduled for June 21st! – Alice is also our Skies Over West Seattle correspondent, with periodic updates on what to watch for, from comets to eclipses and more.