Beauty on the Horizon

Sunrises and sunsets have inspired and enthralled Man from time beyond human memory. Poets and balladeers of all times and of all nations have sung the glories of these daily, dramatic occurrences. In sunrise we see the rebirth of expectation and promise; in the stillness of sunset we enjoy the warmth of pleasant memories. The first sign of approaching sunrise is the ever-so-slight lightening of the eastern sky that seems to linger, gradually brightening, for twenty minutes to half an hour, then grows rapidly more intense until finally the magnificent golden disc of the rising sun seems to leap from the distant horizon. The sunlight's intensity increases for the next few hours until noontime, when the sun stands closest to zenith, sending its light most nearly perpendicular to the warming earth: Westering through the afternoon, the brilliant ball of light approaches our western horizon, painting lengthening shadows. Like Walt Whitman's learn'd astronomer, scientists with mathematical precision have theorized and calculated and proven just why the sunrise and sunset take their characteristic colors: We know that the apparent reduced intensity of early morning and late afternoon sunlight isn't caused by a lessening of the sun's output, but rather by the diminished amount of sunlight reaching us after passing through the "filter" of our planet's enveloping atmosphere. The sun appears brightest around noontime, when the sunlight is least filtered by the vast sea of air above us, but when near the morning and evening horizons the sunlight must travel through much more atmosphere to reach us than when higher in the sky. The thickness of the atmosphere itself and the matter suspended in it filter out the shorter wavelengths of violet and blue and green, leaving the reds and yellows and oranges most prominent in the sunrise and sunset palettes. Sunsets tend to the deeper shades, showing bolder tones than the usually more delicate sunrise hues, as the daytime sky has absorbedmuch of the day's emissions (dust, water vapor, smoke, smog, and the like) and thereby become the denser filter of sunlight. Arizona's sunsets, in particular, are known world-wide and have become somewhat of a "trademark" of our state. While scientific explanation of the hows and whys of these silent heralds of day and night are interesting, all that is put aside when we experience the quiet majesty of a day's borning or the twinkling-on of the evening's stars. For us, that enchanted interval of color and quiet is a time of peace, a time of marvel and wonder, a time of, well of magic. But describing an Arizona sunset is a difficult task. A young Hopi from those proud and timeless mesas of the northeastern part of our state, Karen Koyaneinewa (Gray Dawn of the Early Morning), seems to have said it best when she wrote:

Amid the clouds colors blaze red, orange, pink, yellow reaching out to engulf the once blue sky. Mountains echo the call of birds flying home, the air is cooled and stilled. This silent symphony pauses in time, filling the eyes, the soul, with an expression of reverie.

Slowly, gently these colors give way to the moon and stars. Time once again moves on spilling over the sun. God's earth sleeps refreshed by His goodnight eulogy the sunset.

(Preceding panel) A time to treasure sunrise over the Grand Canyon. Josef Muench The effects of volcanic activity are dramatized in the golden light of late day. The large formation is Shiprock in northwestern New Mexico. David Muench (Opposite page) Late day sun adds a feathery touch to Cholla cactus. David Muench The sun's last caress of the day on the Superstition Mountains east of Phoenix. Bill McKinney

"... in the eye of the beholder." Gill Kenny (Left) The Superstition Mountains glow at sunset.

Bill McKinney (Opposite page) A desert sky at sunset.

Josef Muench

David Muench

The end of another day draws near as the sun quietly slips below the horizon.

The last light of day in the mountains. George McCullough The always-red sandstone of Monument Valley reflects the brilliance of a sunset the result is indescribable beauty from this aerial view. Mitsuho Agishi

Day ends when the sun fades below the horizon. Yet sunlight bathes a full moon over this peaceful ranch scene. All scenes are in the Flagstaff area. Photos by Peter Bloomer