I get that ‘equi-nox’ = ‘equal night’, but what we all really want to know is who’s this Vernon chap it’s named after?
Postscript (5 hours later): OK, so, the Internet is weird. Someone on Twitter has just thanked me for the above crappy joke, which he immediately used as the inspiration for a short story.
I think Vern is Ernest's friend 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS-RB-goZqk