Sunrise 156: Ault Park (The Pavilion’s Alignment With the First Day of Spring…)

The weeping cherry grove at sunrise in Ault Park

The late sunrise colors turned into a slurry of pinks and purples, kind of like an Easter palette.

An aligned sunrise behind Ault Park Pavilion

Happy first day of Spring! And also, it’s official. Ault Park (through the symmetrical axis about the pavilion) can be considered to be aligned with the first day of spring. More specifically, it is aligned with the location of the sun about 10 minutes after sunrise on the first day of spring, allowing for a beautiful view down the hill and across the lawn.

I was hoping to make this morning a nice quick trip up to the park. The sunrise was calm and quiet in an atmosphere that had a soft mixture of colors. It wasn’t until the actual sunrise, however, that the sky started to light up and the clouds danced in an illuminated atmosphere.

As I mentioned yesterday, I had hoped to make it up to the park this morning to check in on the pavilion’s alignment with the sun. I must say that at first I was quite surprised, and frankly a bit confused. You see, yesterday I believed that the sun had risen to the right of the center of the pavilion. Well, today it rose to the left of the center of the pavilion. At first I thought that maybe I had it all wrong – that the pavilion was not actually aligned to the first day of spring. Well, as it turns out I was thrown off by the fact that the sun does not rise straight up into the sky. The sun actually rose in a diagonal, placing it front and center between the center two pavilion columns by about 10 minutes after sunrise. Once I figured this out I was much more relieved. It took me 156 sunrises to figure out that the sun doesn’t rise straight up – something that makes sense when you think about it but never encroached into my frontal consciousness.

I got lucky with some beautiful shots of the pavilion from across the lawn. With the sun’s intense rays making my camera use a high aperture, the effect is always a pleasant one – silhouettes and dynamic clouds.

The early twilight sky. Dark, calm, and quiet… well quiet if you don’t count the ridiculously loud orchestra of bird activity.

About ten minutes before sunrise I took off from the overlook to the main feature of this morning’s sunrise… the Ault Park Pavilion

From the pavilion the lawn had lit up nicely. We can see the park crew out and about on this fine first day of spring.

“Where’s the sun? Could it be to the right of center? I sure hope not…”

“Oh crap. I missed it…”

“Wait a second… something funny’s going on around here”

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There is a north/eastern vantage point across what will soon become a summer meadow. Here we can see the sun finally breaking out of the low lying cloud bank in a soft pink haze.

A vertical shot looking out across the valley.

I’m keen to taking as many pictures featuring this blooming cherry tree as I can. This is the same tree that I featured in yesterday’s post.

A vertical shot across Ault Park’s lawn. For about 30 seconds the pavilion was perfectly aligned with the sun rising up in the center of the two columns. The park crew was intrigued to find out from yours truly that the sunrise was approaching “pavilion alignment”. Nerd alert!

Just a few seconds after “perfect alignment”. Here we can see the exact moment when I realized that the sun was rising up vertically.

Final shot of the pavilion on the first day of spring.

On the way out of the park, the cherry grove was starting to light up nicely. In the past few weeks I’ve been booking it out of the park right at sunrise, but this morning’s late sunrise light meant that the grove was becoming illuminated just as I was leaving. I stuck around for a few minutes and was not disappointed.

Here we see the cherry grove basking in the first rays of the morning light. It smells so fragrant here. A passing pedestrian lady made mention that the magnolias were dropping out of the race due to the heat. I hadn’t considered this before, but she’s right. It’s quite hot and apparently the magnolias are not a fan of the heat. Their bloom season looks like it will last less than a week.

A final shot of the blooming cherry grove. Happy Spring!