Full Lunar Eclipse for North America

tech81 writes "MSNBC is reporting that all of North America will experience a full lunar eclipse on January 20, which also happens to be the first full moon of the new year. Check out the article at MSNBC Space News."

Comments

``North America''?

[David A. Madore]

Excuuuuse me? What in the world does it mean for a lunar eclipse to be ``in (for) North America''?

This would make sense for a solar eclipse, since solar eclipses are very localized, but a solar eclipse happens at the new moon, whereas a lunar eclipse happens at the full moon (for obvious reasons).

A lunar eclipse is visible throughout the hemisphere where it is night (which, of course, is the same as the hemisphere where the moon is visible, since the moon and the sun are in opposition), so at best the ``north'' in ``North America'' is out of place.

This fact (that lunar eclipses are visible from half the world whereas solar eclipses are visible from such a small region) makes lunar eclipses seem much more common than solar eclipses; in fact, the contrary is true. The last total solar eclipse in the world was on August 11, 1999 in Europe (I was there), and the next one is next year in Madagascar.

Message from the Watchdogs

[wagnerer]

Dear God:

This is to notify you that your program entitled 'full-moon screen saver' has a rather severe cosmetic Y2K bug in it. As a result, on January 20'th of your year 2000, the full moon will experience color and brightness difficulties that significantly deviate from the published standard. Our analysts believe there is even a chance it may turn red, a widely touted feature of your 'shutdown/halt' program, possibly causing confusion among your users.

We strongly encourage you to correct this problem at your earliest convenience.

Y2K Watchdog committee

Good opportunity...

[WombatControl]

For all of you that work in an NT shop, all you need to do is tell your boss that if you don't switch over to Linux before January 20, you'll make the moon disappear. Who knows, it might even work.

On another, related front, I've found that astronomical events make great times to get with your significant other and spend some quality time...

how BIG is it, though?

[LocalYokel]

I'm not interested in this full moon eclipse unless the moon will be big and bright enough that you could drive without headlights. With a fresh coat of snow and a full moon, you can almost do this in Minnesota already, but...

I understand that the Druids used a lunar eclipse to make a sneak attack on Crazy Horse, shortly after he used the light of an unusually bright moon the previous month to defeat George Washington's army at the battle of Waterloo. They went on to build the Great Wall of China, before finally settling in what's now called Venezuela, but I could be wrong -- there seems to be a little too much historical confusion about celestial events as of late... :-)

--

Re:Screw the lunar... I want solar!

[RuntimeError]

The next total solar eclipse won't be seen in North America till 2017. The path of totality will cross,northern Oregon first, and then head down in a general southeast direction through parts of Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Nth Carolina, Georgia, to finally leave the continent from South Carolina, between Charleston and Georgetown, and continue on down towards the south Atlantic.

First time in 30038392 Years!

[SGC]

The combination of a full moon and a full lunar eclipse will result in the moon appearing 0.02001% larger AND brighter than it has in several centuries!

This will truly be an exciting night! I suggest everyone emails every person they know with this amazing news!

Upcoming eclipses

[B.D.Mills]

I happen to have the pair of NASA publications as reference books: (Fifty Year Canon of Solar Eclipses: 1986-2035 and (Fifty Year Canon of Lunar Eclipses: 1986-2035)... so here's the details.

Next total solar eclipse visible from the United States: 21 August 2017. If you live in California, you'll have to go to Oregon to see it (assuming that Oregon's that state north of California, my US geography is not too good)

Then there's a total solar eclipse visible from Texas to the Great Lakes on 8 Apr 2024.

A third American total solar eclipse is on 12 Aug 2045, visible from northern California to Florida.

There's more, but it's pointless posting those because you won't be around in 2078 or 2099 to see those ones (unless you're a Montgomery-Burns-style head-in-a-jar-of-liquid then...)

As for total lunar eclipses, I'll give details of upcoming total eclipses by naming the dates and the approximate position of the point of the Earth's surface that's directly overhead at maximum eclipse:

• 21 Jan 2000 - Carribbean
  
• 16 Jul 2000 - the sea near Brisbane (Australia)
  
• 09 Jan 2001 - Saudi Arabia
  
• 16 May 2003 - Brazil
  
• 09 Nov 2003 - Atlantic Ocean west of Africa
  
• 04 May 2004 - Madagascar
  
• 28 Oct 2004 - Atlantic Ocean north of Brazil

For the Americans, who are the majority of the Slashotters, these total lunar eclipses should be visible at some point in the night in question:

• 21 Jan 2000 - good view from all of U.S. and Canada
  
• 16 Jul 2000 - beginning of eclipse visible from western U.S., but no view of totality
  
• 09 Jan 2001 - end of eclipse visible from eastern U.S. and Canada but no view of totality
  
• 16 May 2003 - Good view of eclipse from most of U.S. and Canada, but western regions will miss the beginning of eclipse.
  
• 09 Nov 2003 - Most of eclipse visible from the U.S. and Canada, most regions will miss the beginning
  
• 04 May 2004 - Not visible
  
• 28 Oct 2004 - All of eclipse visible from U.S. and Canada, except for western regions that miss the beginning; all of totality visible