Skip to navigation | Skip to content

Hobart first city to feel 2000 sun rays


A hot topic - who will see the sun first on January 1, 2000?

An astronomer has confirmed Hobart will be the first Australian city to feel the sun's rays in 2000.

The Launceston Planetarium's director, Martin George, has predicted the sun will rise in Hobart a second before 5:35am on January 1 next year, when viewed at sea level. From the top of Mount Wellington, which towers behind Hobart, people will see the Sun just before 5:28 am.

Hobart's Lord Mayor Rob Valentine says he has thrown down the gauntlet to interstate pretenders who are claiming they will be the first to see daylight in 2000.

Mr George said people had assumed that Byron Bay in NSW, as the most easterly point in mainland Australia, would be the first place to see the big year's sunrise.

"What they didn't realise is that it's not just longitude that matters but latitude," he said. "It's the combination of being east and south that gets you an early sunrise."

The first people to see the sun's rays in an Australian territory will be those in Antarctica, where the sun does not set in most regions at that time of year.

But to be the first to see a true sunrise, you'd have to go to Macquarie Island, where at sea level, you'd witness the event at 3.52 am and 14 seconds (Australian Eastern Summer Time). Observers at the top of tall cliffs, though, would actually see the fiery ball emerge a little sooner.

"There is a remote spot on Australian Antarctic Territory where the sun just grazes the horizon as seen from points along that part of the Antarctic coast, " Mr George said. "But it's hardly a proper sunrise and there's likely to be no-one there anyway."

After Macquarie Island, you could celebrate the sunrise in Norfolk Island, Lord Howe Island, and then on some remote peaks of south-east Tasmania.

The first point on mainland Australia to see sunrise will be Cape Howe, in Victoria at 13 seconds before 5.42 am, at sea level.

True millenium seekers, however, should turn up at these locations a year later on January 1, 2001 at fractionally later times.