Out & About …

… on the North York Moors, or wherever I happen to be.

Autumn Equinox

At 08:50 this morning the ecliptic path of the Sun crossed the celestial equator and day and night were of equal length. For those of us in the northern hemisphere it’s the Autumn Equinox. So my project for today was to take an autumnal photo.

I had in mind a palette of “feuille-morte” of the oaks, sycamores, rowan and hawthorn in Newton Wood. A blend of brown, russet and ochre, but nature doesn’t work to a calendar and green is still the dominant colour. Higher onto the moor and it is the bracken which is showing the most change but even that is spasmodic.

Autumn comes from the French “automne” and crossed the Channel sometime in the 15th or 16th Century. Before that, we just said “harvest”. Equinox derives from the Latin “aequinoctium“, “aequus” equal and “nox” night.

Incidentally, “harvest” comes from the Old Norse word “haust“, meaning “to gather”. The Swedish “höst” for autumn, the Danish “høst” and the German “herbst” all derive from this Old Norse word.




Open Space Web-Map builder Code









by

Tags:

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *