400 years ago a professor of mathematics took to improving a recent invention by Dutch spectacle makers Hans Lipperhey and Zacharias Janssen and turned it to the heavens. That simple curiosity set mankind on a journey that will give us the moon and the stars. Put your eye up to the eyepiece to take a look beyond...
Figure 3. displays the path of the July 22nd, 2009 (the eclipse in theSixty Symbols video).The area of total eclipse is displayed by the dark shadow traversingthe globe. A Partial eclipse might be seen by observers in the lightly shadowed areas.
Figure 3. Path of July 22nd, 2009 Total Eclipse |
Totality was visible in many large cities, including Surat, Vadodara, Bhopal, Varanasi, Patna, Gaya, Dinajpur, Siliguri, Guwahati, Tawang in India and Chengdu, Nanchong, Chongqing, Yichang, Jingzhou, Wuhan, Huanggang, Hefei, Hangzhou, Wuxi, Huzhou, Suzhou, Jiaxing, Ningbo, Shanghai, Chapai Nawabganj as well as over the Three Gorges Dam in China. However, in Shanghai, the largest city in the eclipse's path, the view was obscured by heavy clouds.wiki:[5][6] According to NASA, the Japanese island Kitaio Jima was predicted to have the best viewing conditionswiki: [7][8]featuring both longer viewing time (being the closest point of land to thepoint of greatest eclipse) and lower cloud cover statistics than all of continental Asia.3
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Solar Eclipses: 2011 - 2020 |
Calendar Date | TD of Greatest Eclipse | Eclipse Type | Saros Series | Eclipse Magnitude | Central Duration | Geographic Region of Eclipse Visibility |
(Link to Global Map) | (Link to Animation) | (Link to Google Map) | (Link to Saros) | | (Link to Path Table) | |
2011 Jan 04 | 08:51:42 | Partial | 151 | 0.858 | - | Europe, Africa, c Asia |
2011 Jun 01 | 21:17:18 | Partial | 118 | 0.601 | - | e Asia, n N. America, Iceland |
2011 Jul 01 | 08:39:30 | Partial | 156 | 0.097 | - | s Indian Ocean |
2011 Nov 25 | 06:21:24 | Partial | 123 | 0.905 | - | s Africa, Antarctica, Tasmania, N.Z. |
2012 May 20 | 23:53:53 | Annular | 128 | 0.944 | 05m46s | Asia, Pacific, N. America [Annular: China, Japan, Pacific, w U.S.] |
2012 Nov 13 | 22:12:55 | Total | 133 | 1.050 | 04m02s | Australia, N.Z., s Pacific, s S. America [Total: n Australia, s Pacific] |
2013 May 10 | 00:26:20 | Annular | 138 | 0.954 | 06m03s | Australia, N.Z., c Pacific [Annular: n Australia, Solomon Is., c Pacific] |
2013 Nov 03 | 12:47:36 | Hybrid | 143 | 1.016 | 01m40s | e Americas, s Europe, Africa [Hybid: Atlantic, c Africa] |
2014 Apr 29 | 06:04:32 | Annular | 148 | 0.987 | - | s Indian, Australia, Antarctica [Annular: Antarctica] |
2014 Oct 23 | 21:45:39 | Partial | 153 | 0.811 | - | n Pacific, N. America |
2015 Mar 20 | 09:46:47 | Total | 120 | 1.045 | 02m47s | Iceland, Europe, n Africa, n Asia [Total: n Atlantic, Faeroe Is, Svalbard] |
2015 Sep 13 | 06:55:19 | Partial | 125 | 0.788 | - | s Africa, s Indian, Antarctica |
2016 Mar 09 | 01:58:19 | Total | 130 | 1.045 | 04m09s | e Asia, Australia, Pacific [Total: Sumatra, Borneo, Sulawesi, Pacific] |
2016 Sep 01 | 09:08:02 | Annular | 135 | 0.974 | 03m06s | Africa, Indian Ocean [Annular: Atlantic, c Africa, Madagascar, Indian] |
2017 Feb 26 | 14:54:32 | Annular | 140 | 0.992 | 00m44s | s S. America, Atlantic, Africa, Antarctica [Annular: Pacific, Chile, Argentina, Atlantic, Africa] |
2017 Aug 21 | 18:26:40 | Total | 145 | 1.031 | 02m40s | N. America, n S. America [Total: n Pacific, U.S., s Atlantic] |
2018 Feb 15 | 20:52:33 | Partial | 150 | 0.599 | - | Antarctica, s S. America |
2018 Jul 13 | 03:02:16 | Partial | 117 | 0.336 | - | s Australia |
2018 Aug 11 | 09:47:28 | Partial | 155 | 0.737 | - | n Europe, ne Asia |
2019 Jan 06 | 01:42:38 | Partial | 122 | 0.715 | - | ne Asia, n Pacific |
2019 Jul 02 | 19:24:07 | Total | 127 | 1.046 | 04m33s | s Pacific, S. America [Total: s Pacific, Chile, Argentina] |
2019 Dec 26 | 05:18:53 | Annular | 132 | 0.970 | 03m39s | Asia, Australia [Annular: Saudi Arabia, India, Sumatra, Borneo] |
2020 Jun 21 | 06:41:15 | Annular | 137 | 0.994 | 00m38s | Africa, se Europe, Asia [Annular: c Africa, s Asia, China, Pacific] |
2020 Dec 14 | 16:14:39 | Total | 142 | 1.025 | 02m10s | Pacific, s S. America, Antarctica [Total: s Pacific, Chile, Argentina, s Atlantic] |
Abbondanza! Two total eclipses in 7 years.
References
Kochhar, R. K. (1991). "French astronomers in India during the 17th - 19th centuries". Journal of the British Astronomical Association 101 (2): 95-100. http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//... Retrieved 2008-07-27. Emsley, John (2001). Nature's Building Blocks. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 175-179. ISBN 0-19-850341-5. Clifford A. Hampel (1968). The Encyclopedia of the Chemical Elements. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold. pp. 256-268. ISBN 0442155980. Sir Norman Lockyer - discovery of the element that he named helium" Balloon Professional Magazine, 7 August 2009. "Helium". Oxford English Dictionary. 2008. http://dictionary.oed.com/... Retrieved 2008-07-20. Thomson, W. (1872). Frankland and Lockyer find the yellow prominences to give a very decided bright line not far from D, but hitherto not identified with any terrestrial flame. It seems to indicate a new substance, which they propose to call Helium. Rep. Brit. Assoc. xcix. S. A. Mitchell's Eclipses of the Sun, Columbia University Press, 1951. pp 104. Crelinsten, Jeffrey. "Einstein's Jury: The Race to Test Relativity". Princeton University Press. 2006. Retrieved on 13 March 2007. ISBN 9780691123103 Dyson, F. W.; Eddington, A. S.; Davidson, C. (1920),"A Determination of the Deflection of Light by the Sun's Gravitational Field, from Observations Made at the Total Eclipse of May 29, 1919",Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Containing Papers of a Math. Or Phys. Character220: 291-333, doi:10.1098/rsta.1920.0009 Coles, Peter, (2004)Eclipse that Changed the Universe - Einstein's Theory of Relativity
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At the points where the full Moon crosses the ecliptic a lunar eclipse can occur. Like solar eclipses there may be between 2 and 5 lunar eclipses per year.
There are three types of lunar eclipses. Penumbral, partial, and selenelion (selenehelion).
A penumbral eclipse occurs when the Moon passes through the Earth's penumbra. The penumbra causes a subtle darkening of the Moon's surface. A special type of penumbral eclipse is a total penumbral eclipse, during which the Moon lies exclusively within the Earth's penumbra. Total penumbral eclipses are rare, and when these occur, that portion of the Moon which is closest to the umbra can appear somewhat darker than the rest of the Moon. A partial lunar eclipse occurs when only a portion of the Moon enters the umbra. When the Moon travels completely into the Earth's umbra, one observes a total lunar eclipse. The Moon's speed through the shadow is about one kilometer per second (2,300 mph), and totality may last up to nearly 107 minutes. Nevertheless, the total time between the Moon's first and last contact with the shadow is much longer, and could last up to 3.8 hours.wiki: [1] The relative distance of the Moon from the Earth at the time of an eclipse can affect the eclipse's duration. In particular, when the Moon is near its apogee, the farthest point from the Earth in its orbit, its orbital speed is the slowest. The diameter of the umbra does not decrease much with distance. Thus, a totally eclipsed Moon occurring near apogee will lengthen the duration of totality. A selenelion or selenehelion occurs when both the Sun and the eclipsed Moon can be observed at the same time. This can only happen just before sunset or just after sunrise, and both bodies will appear just above the horizon at nearly opposite points in the sky. This arrangement has led to the phenomenon being referred to as a horizontal eclipse. It happens during every lunar eclipse at all those places on the Earth where it is sunrise or sunset at the time. Indeed, the reddened light that reaches the Moon comes from all the simultaneous sunrises and sunsets on the Earth. Although the Moon is in the Earth's geometrical shadow, the Sun and the eclipsed Moon can appear in the sky at the same time because the refraction of light through the Earth's atmosphere causes objects near the horizon to appear higher in the sky than their true geometric position.wiki: [2]12
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Unfortunately, the weather seems to be taking a Republican bent and will not cooperate over the 20th/21st.