Point of View | Leonardo/ISASTwith Arizona State University

Point of View

By Barbara Berrie

On warm evenings we ambled up the steep hill to sunset bench and watched the sun lower down. Tom Skalak told us about the green flash that momentarily appears just when the sun’s orb dips below the horizon. We tried not to stare at it because our eyes became confused by glowing purple and green halos that surrounded everything in our field of vision—but it was hard to turn away. We believe Tom, and will keep looking for the flash. Contrary to our agreement on the green flash (unseen thus far) we spent some time wondering exactly where the horizon lies. The boundary between ocean, clouds, and fog and sky is difficult to discern. If the highest line is indeed the horizon, the ocean seems to extend above the Santa Cruz hills, hovering over the bowl of earth rimmed by these hills and clouds dive undersea. Turns out, from the point of view at Djerassi ranch the horizon is improbably high. We’ll have to raise our gaze, and Amy Landesberg will mark the horizontal to help us navigate.