Sunset at Maeshowe, December 20th, 2007 (winter solstice)

Sunset at Maeshowe, Orkney on a near winter solstice day (winter solstice is in Dec. 22nd, 2007). The still pictures were taken (with permission) from the webcam of Charles Tait: http://www.maeshowe.co.uk/

This project started 10 years ago (December 11th, 1997) as an initiave of Victor Reijs and Charles Tait; with the help of Historic Scotland and many others supporters:
http://www.iol.ie/~geniet/maeshowe/

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Maeshowe
• Orkney
• sunset
• archaeoastronomy
• winter
• solstice

[FloatyCobweb]

Not sure we have the full effect here... the phenomena occurs at sunset on midwinters day which was yesterday 22nd not the 20th as posted. beautiful though!!

[VReijs]

Nothing in life is precise, and 'advetrisers' always make something special. The sun gets into Maeshowe from end November until beginning Feb. Same is for most neolithic monuments (Newgrange; it is there for at least 15 days, if not more in neoltihic times).

But again it seems for 'advertising' reasons they make it more narrow;-)

[shetlandlive]

We at Orkneylive . c o m like this video and have added it to our site.

[Goetterhand]

Grüße aus der Oberlausitz!

[gothdawn1966]

Wow.

I've been watching this sporadically on the website over the years and it's great to see it animated on here - thanks for posting.

Have you tried using a time lapse camera instead of a poorer quality webcam? (I have a friend who does that stuff).

Anyway, Happy Winter Solstice 2008 to all....

x

[OrkneyBG]

I was the steward on duty that day inside Maeshowe - it was a cracker, wasn't it? I'm not sure what mdaane (earlier comment) means - we don't have an 'electronic copy' at Maeshowe, although I know they do at Newgrange. Anyway, lovely job Victor, and many thanks!

[foshigarry]

Impressive watching the sequence as visited before years ago but was wrong time of year to see the full magic effect of the sunset.Wonder what it meant to the Neolithic people?

Thanks

[blobrana]

Happy solstice

[euanfsmith]

What a great sight for the 21st century. Thank you!

[mdaane]

Thank you for your brillant webcam. It was really moving to witness a full solstice sunset live today, and you were right in posting it to YouTube as it was a glorious one. Can't tell you how grateful I was to witness it. I've been to Maes Howe and saw the electric 'copy' of this phenomenon, but this, the whole build up and the change of the light, is absolutely awsome. I never realized that it would show a SQUARE of light really! THNX.

Marco Daane fromt Pynacker, the Netherlands.