The Power of a Lunar Eclipse

[OKpowdah]

Am I the only one who sees a giant eyeball?

One ring to rule them all

[Damage In Tolland]

Let's try and focus more on the long range pattern and forecasting when the pattern will change and less time about riding a spaceship to the moon

[aslkahuna]

A minor point or two. We have to decide just what one considers a lunar eclipse. Just umbral ones? or do we include the penumbral ones which are largely unobservable. but are ecli[pses nonetheless even though they don't reduce incident moonlight by very much. The second point is that eclipses do NOT occur precisely 6 months apart-that would only occur if the line of the Nodes was fixed in Space. However, due to the regression of the nodes, the nodes move westward in the sky along the plane of the Ecliptic such that the "eclipse Year is some 346.6 days with eclipses occurring 173.3 days (5.76 months apart). The complexities of the Moon's motion make for interesting occurrences. For example the most number of eclipses that can occur in any one year is 7- either 4 Solars and 3 Lunars or 5 Solars and 2 Lunars. The former last happened in 1982 when there were three total Lunars in one year. Furthermore one can get two eclipses of either the Sun or Moon (both grazing) in one month.

Steve