(Photo by James Bratsanos)

No matter where you watched summer’s first sunset from, it was beautiful. We were at Solstice Park with Alice Enevoldsen and about 100 people who came to the park for her change-of-seasons sunset watch.

(WSB photos from here)

Alice explained “why we have seasons” after inviting everyone to watch the sunset line up with the park paths that point to precisely placed markers:

As usual, she enlisted a volunteer helper from the crowd – this time, a young sunset-watcher named June – to help her demonstrate how the tilting of the Earth factors into the seasons.

Alice noted some datapoints, such as the fact that the sun never reaches the highest possible point in our sky – it peaks at 66 degrees, and then in winter, only gets to 14 degrees above the horizon. Speaking of which, 8:58 was the exact moment the last visible bit of the Sun slipped behind the Olympics:

Alice – an educator who leads these gatherings as a volunteer NASA Solar System Ambassador – explains that the actual sunset moment is about 10 minutes earlier than the “official” sunset time (which tonight was 9:11 pm). Her next sunset watch will be in on the fall-equinox date, September 22nd, when sunset will be just before 7 pm.

P.S. A sky show followed the sunset watch – crescent moon with Venus right below it in the western sky.