Bishop Monkton's resident astronomer, Chris Higgins, has been at it again! Here he explains how he used a simple beer can to map the progress of the sun between the winter solstices of 2023 and 2024.

"The recent winter solstice occurred on 21st December. ‘Solstice’ in Latin means quite literally ‘Sun standing still’. The sun’s path across the sky varies throughout the year - quite significantly at our latitude of 54 degrees north.

At the winter solstice in December 2023 the volunteers at the Village Hall installed a scientific experiment on the flagpole called a Solar Can. This comprises a sterile beer can containing a piece of old style photographic paper. The can has a pinhole in the side only a quarter of a millimetre in diameter. The can was left in place facing south until the winter solstice a year later in December just gone.

The can was then opened and the photographic paper quickly scanned. The result is an annual record of the Sun’s path from its lowest to highest transit and back again across the Bishop Monkton sky. The positioning of the can is a bit hit and miss as can be seen in the result whereby the highest points of the Sun in the summer sky have been cropped. However, the volunteers are confident an even better result can be obtained next year!