Have you ever wondered just what makes the sunset red? You may be surprised to find out that the red color is always there just like the red in a Maple leaf but we just don’t see the reds and oranges of the color spectrum because there’s another color overwhelming it most of the day. In order to see the colors of the light spectrum ( blue, green, yellow and red) there has to be gasses in the air to absorb their color and dust particles to reflect that color outward. Blue is the most easily absorbed color because it has a shorter wavelength. The shorter the wave length of a color easier it is absorbed by gases in the atmosphere also the less distance light has to travel also affects what color of the light spectrum you will see. 
As the sun sets behind the horizon light has to travel further to reach your eyes. The shorter wavelength (blues) can’t travel as far as the longer wavelength (reds) and we begin to see the reds and oranges of the color spectrum. As the sun sets the red colors that were absorbed by gasses in the atmosphere during the day are now reflecting from the suspended particles in the atmosphere. The more particles suspended in the atmosphere the more brilliant the sunset will be.
Here’s a little tip that has always come in handy for me (no pun intended) when I didn’t have a watch on. I never wear a watch anyway so I’ve used this method to get an idea of the time on numerous occasions.
Here’s an example to make it a little easier. The sun sets here at 5:00 pm. I’m standing at the edge of a clearing and can see the sun will be setting behind the mountain in front of me. I hold my hand up in front of me and block the sun out with my top finger. It takes me 4 hands and 3 fingers to go from the sun to just blocking out the top of the horizon line on that mountain in front of me. I know that 4 hands equals 4 hours and 3 fingers equal 45 minutes. If I want to know what the time is now I take 4 hours and 45 minutes and subtract it from 5 pm, that would leave me the current time of 12:15 pm. You can usually come to within 15 minutes of the actual time if you do it correctly. Give it a shot sometime, it’s useful to know if your in the backwoods or fishing a lake without a time piece and need to no how much longer you can stay out and still get back to camp or the car before dark.
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