The midnight sun

[igenlode]

I've just realised, with considerable consternation, that since Raoul and his crew are spending considerable amounts of time north of the Arctic Circle they are going to be running into the 'midnight sun' issue, which means that all the night-time scenes are wrong :-(

I'm not sure quite what I'd decided upon for which bits of the journey, but since the "Requin" sets sail at the end of March he probably meets up again with Christine around late May, at which date Tromsø is under perpetual sun, and so will the areas further north be :-( At Spitzbergen the sun is constantly in the sky from late April. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_sun

I made reference to "the long eerie twilight of approaching summer in the North", but it never for a moment occurred to me that they were so far north that it simply wouldn't get dark at all...

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

You know... I was actually wondering if Raoul got to spend the Arctic winter in the Arctic and how you described the different stages of twilight. They last quite a while so far up north, so describing them becomes hard to avoid. :) I was thinking about this while complaining that I have no clue how to describe the astronomical twilight other than "the night was not very dark". :P

[(Anonymous)]

That was me, Mei. :)

[igenlode]

Not the Arctic winter -- the summer, which is the problem here. Although I did have to deal with the question of how the d'Artois expedition coped with not just one but multiple winters...

I've never heard anybody talk about 'astronomical twilight', which I'm assuming is a literal translation of a concept that you have and we don't -- or else a highly scientific term that turned up as a translation :-p (I'm guessing that it means something like 'lighting-up time', which is the point at which it is sufficiently far after the sun has actually fallen below the horizon for vehicles to be required to show lights, without its yet being dark as such... but you wouldn't use that in a story.)

I think the only description I've used is "the long pale evenings". "The horizon, where the sky was growing dimmer by the minute", "the long eerie twilight of approaching summer in the North", "a wisp of smoke in the dying light" -- you see, I *did* realise perfectly well that the evenings would be very long and that at midsummer the Polar expedition would have been under perpetual sun, to correspond with the constant dark throughout the winter. I just didn't realise that the influence of the Arctic Circle would extend so far south so early in the season :-(

[igenlode]

That was me, Mei. :)

*Captain Jack Sparrow*: You really ought to get yourself an account, mate :-p

(Do you get notified if I reply to comments on older posts? I'm assuming that without an account you don't, which makes it fairly pointless to respond at all...)

[(Anonymous)]

Nope. No notifications. But I come back occasionally to check whether you replied in the meanwhile. :) I should get an account.

[(Anonymous)]

Civil, nautical and astronomical twilight. I don't think it's an awkward translation, but rather the names of the different stages of dusk and dawn. But I might be wrong.

https://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/different-types-twilight.html

It's not something I'd use in a story though because it's too technical (assuming that it's correct) and hardly gets anything across save for the precise intensity of lighting. :)

[I just didn't realise that the influence of the Arctic Circle would extend so far south so early in the season :-(]

I have no clue how far south they are or how early in the season the action is taking place, but the white nights in Sankt Petersburg start mid May as far as I know, so... :)