or, as you all know it, the gloaming.

so, after the sun sets, there are three types of twilight before we hit night (aka full dark, as stephen king would say).

night starts when the sun hits 18º below the horizon. astronomical twilight is at 12º and nautical twilight at 6º. for a brief etymological moment, nautical twilight is named such because sailors could see most stars with the naked eye AND the horizon is visible.

civil twilight is the time when the sun is within 6º of the horizon.

i sit on my patio as i write this blog, and the sun is just entering civil twilight. i can see a pale crescent of the new moon as it’s also heading toward the western horizon. this is a lovely time of day, and the gloaming is set to last until 9:40 tonight.

the air is finally starting to cool off, and in may, this is when the frogs would start croaking up a storm. alas, the frogs are done in their season, but the birds are still chirping and bugs buzzing around. the patio is still hot under my feet, but the grass is always cool. i like to sit outside until mars pops out, some stars on the eastern horizon start to glow, and my solar lights blink on reluctantly.

civil twilight means we can still see enough to do things even though the sun has set – this is also called the golden hour in photography. the best time of day to take photos. and the gloaming? it traces its etymological origins to germanic for glow, which makes me like the word even more.

so many names for this time of day/night, this moment where one bleeds into the other. the light into the dark. right now i can see a bit of the horizon where the blue turns to greenish turns to yellow turns to purple and pink, with streaks of clouds that glow. is it named such so that the nighttime remembers to return it to us? a handing off of one day into the dark and then hopefully back into the day?