dipper@utastro.UUCP (Debbie Byrd) (10/30/84)
No matter how WE change our clocks -- the the seasons and the stars keep their own time. More on time for the stars -- in a minute. October 30 Time for the Stars This past Sunday most of the country experienced the change back from daylight savings. We really didn't get an extra hour of time. Our method of keeping clock time is artificial -- made by man. It's not a natural law that there are twenty-four hours in a day. Dividing the day into hours is a practice that arose from custom and tradition. Then as technology advanced, better methods developed that let us keep a more accurate watch on time. Before clocks and calendars -- people marked the passage of time by the sun and stars. A certain bright star or pattern of stars would only be visible during the dry months -- and its disappearance in the western twilight meant the end of the hot season -- that soon the leaves would be changing. We live by the clock and the calendar now -- not by the stars. Daylight Savings Time simply lets us rearrange the pattern of our daily lives to take advantage of available sunlight. Only last week perhaps you were sitting on your porch -- enjoying the sunset of an Indian summer's evening -- watching for that first glimpse of Jupiter or Mars in the southwest. Now thanks to human regulation -- just days later we come home from work to dinner and twilight -- and -- to those who watch the sky -- the anticipation of cold, clear winter nights when the stars seem to shine even brighter. Script by Diana Hadley. (c) Copyright 1983, 1984 McDonald Observatory, University of Texas at Austin