Dear Friends, I am intrigued by the live observations of the winter solstice sunsets at the pre-historic Maes Howe site in the Orkneys. They are now being "broadcast" daily on the Web at:
http://www1.tip.nl/~t755096/maeshowe/ During the period between 14:30 and 15:15 GMT (9:30am - 10:15am EST) the live image is updated at 1-minute intervals. The update is automatic if you use Netscape, otherwise you must reload manually. I visited the site on the 18th and saw a reasonable view of sunlight shining on the wall of the passageway, but I was unable to discern a sunset or an alignment. I visited again on the 19th, and a static sample image was being broadcast - probably due to bad weather, which is predicted for the next three days or so. The weather report for the nearby town of Kirkwall as well as a satellite image can be found at: http://weather.yahoo.co.uk/Kirkwall.html The site offers much technical information about the admirable effort to broadcast the images (i.e. how many pins are in the DIN connectors), but it doesn't tell much about Maes Howe itself or its history or astronomy. I offer the following: Maes Howe is on the Orkney Islands, roughly located at: Lat 59 N, Lon 3.15 W I took "The Dialist's Companion" to the site, and determined that on the day of the winter solstice the sun will set at 15:06. During the 45 minute interval the images are broadcast, the sun's altitude will move from +2.736 to -0.679. There are hills and a mountain to the west of the site, so I suggest you will be observing a "loss of sun" rather than a true "sunset". Get there early. For more information about Maes Howe, here is a website with a good description of the monument: http://joshua.micronet.it/utenti/dmeozzi/scotland/Inglese/MaesHowe.html And here is a site with some excellent photographs: http://indigo.stile.le.ac.uk/~rug/STILE/images/hier/bi/si/r7.html Finally, some information from the Encyclopedia Britannica: Maeshowe barrow, prehistoric chambered mound located northeast of Stromness on Pomona (or Mainland) in the Orkneys, Scotland. The mound, probably built for a chieftain family, was in the shape of a blunted cone, 300 feet (91 metres) in circumference, and was encircled by a moat about 90 feet (27 metres) from its base. The mound was probably entered from the west by a passage [through which the sunset is being observed] leading to a central apartment, the walls of which ended in a beehive roof. Maeshowe barrow has also been attributed to 10th-century Norsemen; more plausibly, a band of Norsemen at one time may have used the mound for shelter, cutting a runic record of their visit on the stones and at the same time robbing the the tomb of its possessions. "The Dialist's Companion" can be obtained from: http://www.shadow.net/~bobt/dcomp/dcomp.htm Best regards, Bob Terwilliger
