civil twilight

So, here's the thing about living at 65° North. When the sun goes down, it doesn't drop straight into the sea the way it does at the Equator. Here it slides its way into the water at a shallow angle. Which means that even after it's under the horizon, it's still hanging around for a while, keeping things light.

Civil twilight is defined as the time when the sun is 6° (or closer) below the horizon, and since the sun does its slow-setting trick up here, that time lasts a lot longer here than it did in good ole Beantown.

In the Hub we got about half an hour of civil twilight. But here in the Vík, it's around an hour. It's a magical time of day where the light seems neverending and fades only very gradually. And the same goes for the predawn, which also seems to last forever. Elton John would love it.