Timekeeping
A Uranian hour is
the same length as an Earth hour. (This strange similarity of
time-units is one of the few known instances of convergent cultural evolution.
Its cause is to be found in the future rather than
the past, if Uranian philosophers are to
be believed. See mentality.) Hence a Uranian day - being 30
hours - is 1.25 Earth days long.
This is how
the day is officially divided and its divisions named:
Hours 1 -
5: morningshine
Hours
6-10: ayshine
Hours
11-15: evenshine
Hours
16-20: anyne
Hours
21-25: yyne
Hours
26-30: pallyne
In addition there are, in
popular descriptive usage, two important terms to denote those times
when the stars are visible:
pmetn - approximately the last hour
of pallyne and the first hour of morningshine
refelc - approximately the last hour
of evenshine and the first hour of anyne
The air is at its brightest during the
five hours of ayshine, and at its
darkest - opaquely dark - during yyne, the darkest hour of night, when it
obscures the Sun and stars, rendering the sky utterly black.
Midway between ayshine and yyne there are pmetn and refelc during which the throom is transparent, allowing some stars
to be seen, even in the sunward hemisphere sky, except those that are
right up close to the Sun's position. (Of course it is only
from Farside - in the starward hemisphere sky - that the
heavens are revealed in all their true glory during pmetn and
refelc. That is a great part of the romance of the wilds of deep
Fyaym. Many voyagers have sought a proper sight of the
stars.)
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