Hello Listers,

With the upcoming change back to standard time for many of us, I thought
my fellow listers might be amused by this.

Several days ago, while planning a trip to New Zealand for the winter, I
happened upon a Y2K sunrise website.

http://aa.usno.navy.mil/AA/faq/docs/first_sunrise.html

I found what I thought to be an obvious error. Look at the answer to
question number 5 and notice that the last sentence reads, "The Sun will
rise there at 16:04 (12/31) UT or 4:49 AM local time." Naturally, I
assumed this was a mistake; 16:04 UT cannot be 4:49 AM local time
anywhere. I wrote to the site's contact email address to politely point
out the typo.


Here is their reply.

>
>
>From: "James L. Hilton" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: Robert Peterson <[log in to unmask]>
>Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1999 09:52:05 -0400
>Subject: Re: An apparent website typo
>
>
>
>Dear Mr. Peterson,
>
>Actually the times are correct. The Chatham Islands are one of a rare
>group of places where the local time does not differ by an integer
>number of hours from UT (Universal Time also known as Greenwich Time).
>In the case of the Chatham Islands they are 12:45 ahead of UT.
>
>      Astronomical Applications Dept.
>      U.S. Naval Observatory
>      http://aa.usno.navy.mil/AA/
>
>

Now, it's unlikely that an HP3000 would be found in the Chatham Islands.
But it's comforting to know that the TIMEZONE spec of the SETCLOCK
command could handle local time accurately if need be.

:)

Bob