I captured these sunrise photos early yesterday, while walking through Balboa Park’s Marston Point. I was on my way to watch the start of the Thanksgiving 5K charity “Run For Hope.”
Marston Point lies at the southwest corner of Balboa Park, at the south end of the West Mesa. When there are low broken clouds to the east, the sun rising beyond the trees and distant mountains can be very dramatic.
As you can see, airplanes descending at sunrise toward San Diego International Airport are an additional cool sight!
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The newly opened Sweetwater Park on Chula Vista’s bayfront has a very unique architectural feature.
At one end of the public restrooms a sheltering roof contains an oculus. What’s an oculus? It’s a circular opening that allows natural sunlight to shine through.
During the day, the oculus casts a circle of light on bands in the concrete underfoot. You can see those curving bands in the above photograph.
By observing the light’s movement along the bands, Earth’s rotation can be tracked, as the sun “rises” in the east and “sets” in the west. Depending on the season of year, and the angle of the sun’s path through the sky, the projected light will follow a particular band.
On the wall is an explanation…
The Theory of the Seasons.
The Earth’s rotation axis is tilted by 23.5 degrees with respect to the ecliptic and is always pointed to the celestial poles as the Earth moves around the Sun. Sometimes the Northern Hemisphere is tilted away from the Sun and the Sun’s rays hit the Northern Hemisphere at a shallow angle.
The Summer Solstice marks the beginning of Summer and is the longest day of the year, just as the Winter Solstice marks the beginning of Winter and is the shortest day of the year.
The Equinoxes; Equi meaning Equal, and Nox meaning Night, telling you that the day and the night are of equal length. This occurs when the Sun is directly over the Equator, in between the two Tropics and occurs around March 21st and September 23rd marking the beginning of Spring and Autumn.
If this sounds like a whole bunch of mumbo-jumbo, fortunately there’s an illustration to help one visualize the concept…
Now consider my next photograph.
On June 21, as the summer begins, the sun will be at its highest in San Diego, here in the Northern Hemisphere.
Because of this, the sun’s light projected through the oculus will come from a high angle, and follow the lower band as Earth turns and the day progresses.
It just so happened that I visited Sweetwater Park on June 18. I arrived at the oculus a little after noon.
You can see the circle of light is almost atop the June 21 band, and is now to the right of the central drain, past the 12 PM mark.
The light would continue to move right along the same band as the sun descends in the sky toward the horizon.
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
It’s the first morning of Spring. As the sun rose over the mountains east of San Diego, the Inez Grant Parker Memorial Rose Garden in Balboa Park awakened.
The few rose blooms that have already opened caught the early light and became even more beautiful.
I was there to take capture a bit of the transformation.
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I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
Enjoy these photographs, taken early this morning around sunrise.
I walked through downtown San Diego along Harbor Drive, then on down Martin Luther King, Jr. Promenade, which parallels Harbor Drive. The sun would rise almost directly in front of me behind thin clouds.
You can see how dramatic the blazing sunrise was!
These photographs taken by my old camera are unaltered, except for some cropping. (I’m feeling lazy. Yes, I could’ve sharpened a few of them.)
What a beautiful day! What a beautiful city!
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I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
Enjoy half a dozen photographs taken this morning around sunrise.
It’s early September, still summer, and the weather has been unusually warm. A bit after 6 o’clock, the sky to the east brightened and broken clouds became even more beautiful above downtown San Diego.
My camera and I moved slowly west down Broadway from the vicinity of Santa Fe Depot. You can see in these photos how obelisk-like America Plaza with its colorfully lit trolley station is prominent in the foreground.
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
A beautiful sunrise illuminated San Diego this morning. Walking through Old Town, I watched scattered clouds to the east turn brilliantly yellow and orange.
The present-day Immaculate Conception Catholic Church stands adjacent to Old Town San Diego State Historic Park.
A modest adobe chapel that was built nearby in 1851 would be replaced by this church building. Its construction was begun in 1868 and, after various setbacks, was completed half a century later, in 1917.
In these photographs, you can glimpse a bit of the church’s façade and bell tower, elements of its Spanish Mission style architecture.
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
This morning, as the sun broke above the horizon somewhere east of downtown San Diego, sunrise colors painted the sky and reflected from building windows along Broadway. It was stunning.
I stood in the median of Broadway at Kettner Boulevard and aimed my camera at the risen beauty. A few minutes later, the fiery colors would fade.
Late tonight another big storm rolls into San Diego. More flooding is expected. Hopefully everyone stays safe!
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter)!
These three photographs were taken early this morning.
I walked very slowly along downtown’s Broadway Pier as the sun rose–and as a bank of fog rolled in from San Diego Bay.
The sun, clearing the horizon somewhere behind downtown’s high buildings, magically turned the fog orange. Then the gray creeping fog made those buildings vanish.
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter)!
As I passed down Mission Center Road above the San Diego River, the rising sun illuminated low clouds to the east, and beautiful colors reflected from calm water.
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter)!
Cool San Diego Sights! 