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Luna Cognita pp 1067–1130Cite as

Observing Lunar and Solar Eclipses

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Abstract

In astronomy, an eclipse is the event where one celestial body passes either in front of another celestial body or is darkened in the shadow cast by a second body. In the previous chapter, I discussed one type of eclipse—an occultation by the Moon of another celestial object. A total solar eclipse is probably the most spectacular celestial event that one can observe, such as the one painted in Figure 32.1. In this chapter, I will cover the two most widely observed types of occultations involving the Moon—lunar and solar eclipses. The word “eclipse” is derived from the Greek ekleipsis from ekleipein (ἐκλιπιν), meaning “fail to appear, to be eclipsed.”

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Shlomo Sela, translator, Abraham Ibn Ezra On Elections, Interrogations, and Medical Astronomy: A Parallel Hebrew-English Critical Edition of the Book of Elections (3 Versions), the Book of Interrogations (3 Versions), and the Book of Luminaries. (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 455.

  2. 2.

    Guido Bonatti, Bonatti on Basic Astrology, translated by Benjamin N. Dykes (Minneapolis, MN: The Cazini Press, 2010), 165.

  3. 3.

    Ibid., 242. Refer to Chapter 2 in this book concerning the Head and Tail of the Dragon.

  4. 4.

    Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, translated by Charles Eliot Norton. In The Great Books of the Western World. Vol. 21. (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952), 29.

  5. 5.

    Rebecca Richardson Joslin, Chasing Eclipses (Boston, MA: Walton Advertising & Printing Co. 1929), 118, 119.

  6. 6.

    M. J. Geller, Evil Demons (Helsinki: Univ. of Helsinki, 2007), 253, 254.

  7. 7.

    Ibid., 255.

  8. 8.

    J. Eric S. Thompson, “The Moon Goddess in Middle America: With Notes on Related Deities” Contributions to American Anthropology and History 29 (June 30, 1939), 165.

  9. 9.

    W. T. Lynn, “The Chinese Eclipse of B.C. 776” The Observatory 14 (No. 179) (September 1891), 309. The poem is reproduced from James Leggee’s (1815–97) translation from the Chinese in his Chinese Classics, Vol. 4 The She-king (1866).

  10. 10.

    S. N. K., “The Eclipse of Chung K’ang” Nature 32 (July 1885), 276.

  11. 11.

    Lawrence Teacher, ed., The Unabridged Mark Twain (Philadelphia: Running Press, 1979), Vol 2, 983, 984. The king freed the Yankee and ordered him to be dressed as a prince–“the ackward sixth-century clothes.” A side note about Mark Twain is that he was born during the 1835 apparition of Halley’s Comet and died, as he had predicted, when it returned in 1910.

  12. 12.

    Dates for events that occurred before A.D. October 14, 1582 are given in the Julian calendar. The Saros number is given for all eclipses so numbered.

  13. 13.

    Some sources claim this unpredicted eclipse was as early as the 2158 date or in 2136 B.C. Modern scholarship places it on October 2137 B.C.

  14. 14.

    Ibid., 276. Fang is an asterism in the constellation Scorpius.

  15. 15.

    First Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang began in 213 to burn most of the existing books, so that historians would not be able to compare his reign with past rulers. He had 460 scholars buried alive for possessing any of the forbidden books.

  16. 16.

    F. Crawford Brown, “The Eclipse in China” Pop. Astro. 39 (10) (No. 390) (December 1931), 569.

  17. 17.

    Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, Vol. 3 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1970), 414.

  18. 18.

    Johannes Kepler, Kepler’s Somnium, translated by Edward Rosen (Madison: Univ. Wisconsin Press (1967), 63. Labana is the Hebrew word for the Moon and Kepler used that word to name his moon in his book.

  19. 19.

    Elegy and Iambus: Being the Remains of all the Greek Elegiac and Iambic Poets, Vol. 2, translated by J. M. Edmonds (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, Loeb Classical Library number 259, 1954), 135. Some scholars consider the eclipse referenced to be instead for the annular solar eclipse of June 27, 661 B.C. (Saros 55). In the footnote for this quote, Edmonds states that the eclipse: “prob. ref. to the eclipse usually dated 6th April 648 B.C., but recently put at 5th April 647 B.C.; that of June 27, 660 B.C., which was total at Thasos and not Paros, would also fall in Archilochus’ lifetime.” Edmonds attributes these additional dates to Frederich Karl Ginzel, sans reference data. Note that there was no total solar eclipse on April 5, 647 B.C. nor on June 27, 660, but in each case there was one visible in Greece a year earlier.

  20. 20.

    John Knight Fotheringham, Historical Eclipses: Being the Halley Lecture, Delivered 17 May 1921 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1921), 21, 22.

  21. 21.

    Plutarch, Plutarch’s Lives: Pericles and Fabius Maximus, Nicias and Crassus, Vol. 3, translated by Bernadotte Perrin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, Loeb Classical Library number 65, 2001), 101, 103. The 500 year gap can cause an alteration in some historical facts.

  22. 22.

    Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, Vol. 1, Book 2, 28 translated by Charles Forster Smith (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, Loeb Classical Library number 108, 1980), 309, 311. The visible stars were probably the planets Venus and Jupiter, because Venus was only about 20° and about Jupiter 43° from the Sun during the eclipse.

  23. 23.

    Plutarch, Plutarch’s Lives: Pericles and Fabius Maximus, Nicias and Crassus, Vol. 3, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, Loeb Classical Library number 65, 2001), 289–293.

  24. 24.

    Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, Vol. 4, Book 7, 50 translated by Charles Forster Smith (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, Loeb Classical Library number 169, 2003), 101,

  25. 25.

    E. Walter Maunder, The Astronomy of the Bible (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1909), 120.

  26. 26.

    Ibid., 121. Also refer to W. T. Lynn, “Assyrian Eclipses” The Observatory 14 (No. 178) (August 1891), 285.

  27. 27.

    The Layman’s Parallel Bible: King James Version, Modern Language Bible, Living Bible, Revised Standard Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Bible Publishers (1973), 2220.

  28. 28.

    W. T. Lynn, “Assyrian Eclipses” The Observatory 14 (No. 178) (August 1891), 286.

  29. 29.

    Fred Espenak and Jean Meeus, Five Millennium Canon of Solar Eclipses: –1999 to +3000 (2000 BCE to 3000CE) (Greenbelt, MD: NASA/TP–2006–214141), A–69–A–71, A–93–A–96.

  30. 30.

    The Layman’s Parallel Bible, 560.

  31. 31.

    Robert Dick Wilson, “What does “The Sun Stood Still” Mean?” Princeton Theological Review 16 (1) (1918), 46–54. On page 103 in the same issue of this journal, Henry Norris Russell suggested that the year 1131 B.C. was too late and “that there may have been an eclipse in this same region several centuries earlier.” As I have previously discussed regarding the death date of Moses, Russell may have been correct.

  32. 32.

    The Book of Jasher, translated by Moredecai M. Noah (Springville, UT: Cedar Fort, Inc., 2010), 246.

  33. 33.

    The Layman’s Parallel Bible, 2200.

  34. 34.

    Ibid., 2220.

  35. 35.

    Galileo Galilei, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, translated by Stillman Drake (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), 417.

  36. 36.

    Alberto A. Martínez, Burned Alive, Giordano Bruno, Galileo, and the Inquisition (London: Reaktion Books, 2018), 253.

  37. 37.

    Homer, The Iliad, Vol. 2, Book 17, 366–377, translated by A. T. Murray (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, Loeb Classical Library number 171, 1985), 259.

  38. 38.

    Ibid., 323, 325.

  39. 39.

    Carl Schoch, “The Eclipse of Odysseus” The Observatory, 49 (No. 620) (January 1926), 19–21.

  40. 40.

    St. P. Papamarinopoulos, P. Preka-Papadema, P. Antonopoulos, H. Mitropetrou, A. Tsironi, and P. Mitropetros, “A New Astronomical Dating of Odysseus’ Return to Ithaca” Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry, 12 (1) (June 2012), 117–128.

  41. 41.

    Homer, The Odyssey, Vol. 2, Book 20, 355–357, translated by A. T. Murray (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, Loeb Classical Library number 105, 1980), 299, 301.

  42. 42.

    Constantino Baikouzis and Marcelo O. Magnasco, “Is an Eclipse Described in the Odyssey” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105 (26) (July 1, 2006), 8823–8828.

  43. 43.

    Cicero, De re publica, Book 1, 16, translated by Clinton Walker Keyes (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, Loeb Classical Library number 213, 2006), 47.

  44. 44.

    Herodotus, The Histories, Vol. 1, Book I, 74, translated by A. D. Godley (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, Loeb Classical Library number 117, 1990), 91, 93. Syennesis was the title for the kings of Cilica in the Syennesis Dynasty. Labynetus appears to have been a title of monarchs of Babylon. This Labynetus is believed to actually be the Neo-Babylonian Empire King Nebuchadnezzar II (c. 634–562 B.C.; reign 605–562).

  45. 45.

    John Knight Fotheringham, “Cleostratus” Journal of Hellenic Studies 39 (1919), 180–184. Fotheringham theorizes that the calculations that Thales used to predict this eclipse are based on the Babylonian 18-year cycle using the total solar eclipse of May 18, 603 B.C. (Saros 57) as the starting point of his calculations. Both the 603 and 585 eclipses are of the same Saros 57 family.

  46. 46.

    Xenophon, Anabasis, Vol. 3 Book 3, 4, translated by Carleton L Brownson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, Loeb Classical Library number 90, 1980), 227.

  47. 47.

    Many historians give the date of September 12, 490 B.C. as the date of the battle. The August date was derived by using the Spartan calendar instead of the Athenian one.

  48. 48.

    Scholars believe that Phidippides may have been an historical person, but his running that distance [241km] in one day, returning back to Athens with the Spartan answer the next day, fighting on the Greek side at Marathon the following day, then running back to Athens with the news of the victory all seem improbable for a 40-year-old man to accomplish and, because Herodotus wrote his accounts 30 to 40 years after the events, they may be suspect in reliability. Also, Herodotus does not mention any herald running to Athens with the news after the battle. It is not until about 500 years later, that Plutarch mentions such a run from Marathon to Athens in his book On the Fame of the Athenians. He gives the name of the runner as Thersippus of Eroeadae (fl. 490 B.C.) or a soldier named Eucles (fl. 490 B.C.) “who ran in full armor, hot from the battle, and, bursting in the door of the first men of the State, could only say ‘Hail! we are victorious! and straight away expired.” (Plutarch Moralia, Vol. 4, translated by F. C. Babbitt (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, Loeb Classical Library number 305, 1993), 347, 438.

  49. 49.

    Herodotus, The Histories, Vol. 3, Book 6, 106, translated by A. D. Godley (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, Loeb Classical Library number 119, 1982), 129.

  50. 50.

    Ibid,. Vol. 3, Book 7, 351, 353. Scholars believe that this is the 479 B.C. lunar eclipse that Herodotus described as a solar eclipse.

  51. 51.

    Cicero, De re publica, op cit., 45, 47.

  52. 52.

    Pindar, The Odes of Pindar Vol. 2 Paeans 9, translated by John E. Sandys (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, Loeb Classical Library number 56, 1978), 547, 549.

  53. 53.

    Aristophanes, The Clouds, The Great Books of the Western World, Vol. 5, translated by Benjamin Bickley Rogers (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952), 497, lines 582–584.

  54. 54.

    Do not confuse this Conon with the astronomer Conon of Samos.

  55. 55.

    Xenophon, Hellenica, Vol. 1, 4, Book 3, (10), translated by Carleton L. Brownson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, Loeb Classical Library number 88, 2003), 197. Peisander (unkn.–394 B.C.) was Agesilaus’ brother-in-law.

  56. 56.

    Plutarch, Plutarch’s Lives; Dion, Vol. 6, Book 23, 3 and Book 24 1–3, translated by Bernadotte Perrin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, Loeb Classical Library number 98, 1970), 49, 50.

  57. 57.

    These clay tablets are housed at the British Museum and are known as the Babylonian Astronomical Diaries. The most ancient extant diary has been dated to circa 651 B.C. with the latest member being dated to 60 B.C.

  58. 58.

    Justin’s book is also known as the Libri Historium Philippicrium or Historiæ Philippicæ.

  59. 59.

    Justin, Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus, Book 22, Chapter 22, Section 6, translated by J. C. Yardley (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1994), 176. It preserves much information about the history of the Hellenistic kingdoms from Alexander the Great up until their conquest by the Romans. In some versions this book is known as Historiae Philippicæ.

  60. 60.

    Livy, History of Rome, Vol. 13, Book 44, 37.8, translated by Alfred C. Schlesinger (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, Loeb Classical Library number 396, 1951), 217. Livy credits the military tribune Gaius Sulpicius Gallus with informing the troops about the pending lunar eclipse, so they would not be surprised or fearful when it occurred. Maybe a decade or so before Livy’s birth, Pliny the Elder had already mentioned this foretelling of the eclipse on the eve of the battle by Sulpicius Gallus. Refer to: Pliny, Natural History, Books 1–2, translated by H. Rackham, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press Loeb Classical Library, 1938), Book 2, Chapter 9, paragraph 53, page 203.

  61. 61.

    Plutarch, Concerning the Face Which Appears in the Orb of the Moon, in Plutarch’s Moralia with an English Translation by Harold Cherniss and William C. Helmbold (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, Loeb Classical Library, 406, 1957), 12:117, 12:121.

  62. 62.

    W. T. Lynn, Remarkable Eclipses (London: Samuel Bagster & Sons, Limited, 1908), 18. I have to question his timing of observing the corona at “totality” in the 1598 eclipse, because the path of totality passed across England and Scotland while Jesenský was believed to have been in Germany and thus could not see totality.

  63. 63.

    Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 4 edited by J. B. Bury (London: Methuen & Company (1909), 53.

  64. 64.

    Snorri Sturluson, The Heimskringla: History of the Kings of Norway, translated by Lee. M Hollander (Austin: Univ. Texas Press, 1964): Saint Óláfr’s Saga, Chapter 226, page 511. The point of greatest eclipse was in the Norwegian Sea, to the west of Norway

  65. 65.

    Anonymous, The Song of Igor’s Campaign: An Epic of the Twelfth Century, translated by Vladimir Nabokov (New York: Vintage Books, 1960), 91–93. The story dates back to the late twelfth century (c. 1187?) written down in a single known manuscript and was first published in Moscow in 1800. The original manuscript was destroyed in a fire in Moscow in 1812. Novgorod-Seversk was Igor’s throne town. Vladimir Nabokov is the author of the novel Lolita (1955).

  66. 66.

    Ibid., 95, 96. The Ipatiev Chronicle [a.k.a. the Hypatian Chronicle or the Hypatian Codex] is dated from the early fifteenth century and the Lavrentiev Chronicle is from the second half of the fourteenth century.

  67. 67.

    Aleksandr Borodin died before he could complete the opera. After his death, the Russian composer, teacher, and musical director Nikolai Andreevich Rimsky-Korsakov (1844–1908) and the Russian composer and conductor Aleksander Konstantinovich Glazunov (1865–1936) completed the libretto and orchestration based on Borodin’s notes. Borodin published 40 works on chemistry and in 1862, discovered the first organic fluoride compound–benzoyl fluoride.

  68. 68.

    Elder Edda, “Völuspá” stanzas 40 and 41, lines 1–8 each, translated by Henry Adams Bellows, (1936), 19.

  69. 69.

    Jean Dominique Cassini, “Reflexions sur l’éclipse du soleil du 12 May 1706” Histoire de l’Académie Royale des Sciences ... pour l’année MDCCVI, Mémoires, (1731), 252.

  70. 70.

    Eric Forbes, Lesley Murdin, and Frances Willmoth, The Correspondence of John Flamsteed (Bristol, UK: Institute of Physics Publishing, 2002), Vol. 3, 308, 309, catalogued letter number 1088. In his book Total Solar Eclipses, Martin Mobberly argues that Stanyan is describing the Sun’s chromosphere (page 22). I disagree.

  71. 71.

    The quote is as republished in William Thynne Lynn, Remarkable Eclipses 9th ed (London: Samuel Bagster and Sons, 1908), 23, 24.

  72. 72.

    Forbes, Murdin, and Willmoth, op. cit., Vol. 3, 309.

  73. 73.

    The Gregorian calendar went into usage in England and its colonies on September 2, 1752.

  74. 74.

    From the wording on Edmond Halley’s 1715 eclipse broadsheet map. “Sovereign Lord King George” was George I, King of England (1660–1727; reign 1714–27).

  75. 75.

    Edmond Halley, “Observations of the Late Total Eclipse of the Sun on the 22d of April Last Past, Made Before the Royal Society at their House in Crane-Court in Fleet Street, London” Phil. Trans. 1 24 (343) (March, April, and May 1715), 225–262.

  76. 76.

    Ibid., 225–262.

  77. 77.

    Samuel Williams, “Observations of a Solar Eclipse, Octobr 27, 1780, Made on the East Side of Long Island in Penobscot Bay” Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. 1 (January 1, 1785), 90–92.

  78. 78.

    Francis Baily, “On a Remarkable Phenomenon that Occurs in Total and Annular Eclipses of the Sun” Mem. RAS 10 (1838), 5.

  79. 79.

    Pope Gregory, Life and Miracles of Saint Benedict, Book 2 (35), Translated by Odo J. Zimmermann and Benedict R. Avery (Bethlehem, Connecticut, 1981), 41.

  80. 80.

    José Joaquín de Ferrer, “Observations of the Eclipse of the Sun, June 16th, 1806, Made at Kinderhook, in the State of New-York.” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 6 (Part 2) (43) (1809): 266, 267.

  81. 81.

    Ibid., 274.

  82. 82.

    Paul Charbonneau, Biography of Gustav Robert Kirchhoff in Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers Vol. 1, (Springer, 2007), 642.

  83. 83.

    Jules Janssen, “Observations of Dr. J. Janssen, Director of the Observatory of Mendon, Chief of the French Mission to Caroline Island to Observe the Total Solar Eclipse of May 6, 1883” The Sidereal Messenger 2 (No. 6) (September 1883), 179–183.

  84. 84.

    Sir Isaac Newton, Opticks: Or a Treatise of Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light (New York: Dover Publications, 1979), 338, 339.

  85. 85.

    John Mitchell, “On the Means of Discovering the Distance, Magnitude, etc. of the Fixed Stars, in Consequence of the Diminution of the Velocity of their Light...” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 74 (1784), 35–57.

  86. 86.

    Johann von Soldner, “Ueber die Ablenkung eines Lichtstrals von seiner geradlinigen Bewegung, durch die Attraktion eines Weltkörpers, an welchem er nahe vorbei geht” Astronomisches Jahrbuch für das Jahr 1804, (1804), 161–172. Translated by S. L. Jaki as “On the Deflection of a Light Ray from its Rectilinear Motion, by the Attraction of a Celestial Body at Which it Nearly Passes by.”

  87. 87.

    I hope that you have noticed the popularity of scientifically observing eclipses of Saros 133 by astronomers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Total solar eclipses of this Saros family had long-lived periods of totality during that time, since the moment of greatest eclipse tended to occur as the Moon’s shadow passed over, or very close to, the equator.

  88. 88.

    Dyson, F. W., A. S. Eddington, and C. Davidson. “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, 220 (1920), 291.

  89. 89.

    Ibid., 332.

  90. 90.

    For a more detailed account of the mostly Jewish scientists, in many fields besides astronomy, who were forced to flee Nazi-occupied Europe, refer to the book by Jean Medawar and David Pyke, Hitler’s Gift: The True Story of the Scientists Expelled by the Nazi Regime (New York: Arcade Publishing, 2012). A number of these individuals now have a lunar feature named for them.

  91. 91.

    A. Boutquin, “Les Phénomènes Radioltélégraphiques et L’éclipesSolaire du 29 Mai 1919” Ciel et Terre 36 (1920), 198–204.

  92. 92.

    Pliny, Natural History, Books 1–2, translated by H. Rackham, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press Loeb Classical Library, 330, 1938), Book 2, Chapter 8, Paragraph 51, page 202.

  93. 93.

    Johannes Kepler, Paralipomena to Witelo and Optical Part of Astronomy, translated by William H. Donahue (Santa Fe, NM: Green Lion Press, 2000), 287–296.

  94. 94.

    William Beer and Johann Mädler, Der Mond, (Berlin, 1837), §97, §98, pages 141–144.

  95. 95.

    William Chauvenet, A Manual of Spherical and Practical Astronomy, Vol. 1, Spherical Astronomy, 5th ed. (London, 1863), §338, page 542.

  96. 96.

    Byron W. Soulsby, “An Improved Oblateness for the Earth’s Thermosphere from Lunar Eclipse Observations” Astronomical Society of Australia, 10 (2) (1992), 131–133.

  97. 97.

    The 24 total penumbral total eclipses between the years 1900 and 2500, using the “French rule” method are: June 13, 1900 (Saros 138), May 3, 1901 (Saros 110), December 7, 1908 (Saros 114), December 19, 1926 (Saros 114), December 29, 1944 (Saros 114), October 18, 1948 (Saros 116), January 9, 1963 (Saros 114), January 20, 1981 (Saros 114), March 3, 1988 (Saros 113), March 14, 2006 (Saros 113), August 29, 2053 (Saros 119), April 25, 2070 (Saros 142), August 8, 2080 (Saros 120), September 29, 2099 (Saros 148), January 23, 2103 (Saros 145), February 22, 2121 (Saros 145), March 16, 2128 (Saros 144), February 13, 2139 (Saros 145), August 23, 2222 (Saros 151), December 11, 2429 (Saros 132), May 29, 2458 (Saros 128), January 1, 2466 (Saros 132), January 13, 2484 (Saros 132), and September 30, 2498 (Saros 135). Fred Espenak and Jean Meeus, Five Millennium Canon of Lunar Eclipses: –1999 to +3000 (2000 BCE to 3000 CE) (Washington, D.C. NASA/TP2009–214172, January 2009), A-471–A-543.

  98. 98.

    Interview of Rebecca Richardson Joslin “Chasing Eclipses One of her Hobbies” in the “Daily Boston Globe,” (February 23, 1930), A16.

  99. 99.

    The word “sierra” is Spanish for “mountain range.”

  100. 100.

    Francis Baily, one of the reports on the total solar eclipse in “The Sidereal Messenger” 1 (4) (September 1846), 24.

  101. 101.

    George Airy, “On Fringes of Light in Solar Eclipses” MNRAS 23 (2) (December 12, 1862), 73, 74.

  102. 102.

    William H. Pickering, “Total Eclipse of the Sun.” Annals of Harvard College Observatory 18 (5) (1890), 95.

  103. 103.

    Anonymous, “Eclipse Shadow Bands and Correlated Atmospheric Phenomena” Monthly Weather Review 28 (5) (May 1900), 210.

  104. 104.

    M. A. Ellison, “Why do Stars Twinkle?” IAJ 2 (1) (March 1954), 6, 7.

  105. 105.

    Robert W. Wood, Physical Optics, (New York, 1905), 75, 76.

  106. 106.

    J. L. Codona, “The Scintillation Theory of Eclipse Shadow Bands” Astronomy and Astrophysics 164 (No. 2) (August 1986), 415–427.

  107. 107.

    The city’s name “Terranova” no longer exists. The city was renamed “Gela” in 1927 [actually re-renamed, because Gela was the original name of the Greek colony, founded in c. 690 b.c. as a joint colony of Cretans under Entimus of Crete (fl. c. 690 b.c.) and Rhodians under Antiphemus of Rhodes (fl. c. 690 b.c.)].

  108. 108.

    Note the pennant attached to the balcony pole in Figure 32.49. This flag is missing in most copies of this original drawing, as published in Diamilla Müller’s report on the total solar eclipse in Eclisse Totale del Sole: del 22 Decembre 1870, Osservazioni Meteoriche E Magnetiche Eseguite in Terranova de Sicilia (Milan: E. Treves, Editore, 1872), after page 68.

  109. 109.

    Demetrio Emilio Diamilla Müller, untitled report with a partial translation from Rapporti Osservaioni Dell’Ecclisse Totale di Sole published by Della Commissione Italiana (1872), 176. The report was reprinted in Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society 41 (1879), 41, 52, and 53. Also in 1872, Müller published his full report on this eclipse, entitled Eclisse totale del sole del 22 decembre1870: Osservazioni meteoriche e magnetiche, eseguite in Terranova de Sicilia. The coordinates for Müller’s observation site at the Convento Padri Cappuccini in Gela, was (37.067° N, 14.24° E.).This places the site within the zone of totality on December 22, 1870 with an eclipse magnitude of 1.023 and a totality duration of 1m 50s. The house in Figure 32.49 is about a half a block northeast from the church of the Convento Padri Cappuccini.

  110. 110.

    Richard L. Feldman, “Shadow Bands at the Eclipse of July 9, 1945,” Popular Astronomy 53 (8) (No. 528) (October 1945), 394–396. McKinsey’s name is misspelled in the article as “McKinsie.” John C. C. McKinsey is the author of the book Introduction to the Theory of Games (1952).

  111. 111.

    Rebecca R. Joslin, Chasing Eclipses (Boston, MA: Walton Advertising & Printing Co., 1929), 136, 139.

  112. 112.

    Achille-Pierre Dionis Du Séjour, “Nouvelles méthodes analytiques pour calculer les éclipses de soeil, les occultations des étoiles fixes et des planètes par la Lune” Historie et Mémoires de l’Académie Royale des Sciences, 1777 (Paris, 1779), 318 (section 449).

  113. 113.

    The maximum observable period of totality can be extended if the observer is on a high equatorial mountain or in a high flying fast airplane travelling along the centerline of the shadow path. Being at high elevation places an observer deeper into the shadow cone, and being in a fast airplane allows you to chase the shadow and to stay within the cone for a longer time than if you were stationary on the ground at sea level. The current maximum will vary over the millennia as a result of the Earth’s secular variations in its orbital elements.

  114. 114.

    Henry Helm Clayton, “The Eclipse Cyclone and Diurnal Cyclones.” Annals of The astronomical Observatory of Harvard College 43 part 1 (January 1901), 11.

  115. 115.

    Ibid., 16.

  116. 116.

    These months equal the following days for a Saros:

    239 anomalistic months = 6585.537 days

    242 draconic months = 6585.357 days

    223 synodic months = 6585.321 days

  117. 117.

    Jean Meeus, Mathematical Astronomy Morsels (Willmann-Bell Richmond, VA, 1997), 110–112.

  118. 118.

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    Robert A. Garfinkle

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Garfinkle, R.A. (2020). Observing Lunar and Solar Eclipses. In: Luna Cognita. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-1664-1_32

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