Ever since man's first appearance on this planet, eclipses have been regarded as both mystical and devine with some
cultures, for example, associating a lunar eclipse with the imminent arrival of death, war and/or famine. Although the
distance of the moon and sun from earth vary dramatically (400,000 vs 150,000,000 km, respectively), the apparent size
of these two heavenly bodies is such that they give the impression during an eclipse, solar or lunar, to be virtually
identical (ie. about 30 arc-minutes in angular size). A total eclipse represents the unique occurrence in space and time
where the sun, moon and earth are perfectly alligned as three collinear points on the same orbital plane. When the
collinearity is not perfect but one of these three bodies is slightly higher or lower in the plane, we have a partial
eclipse. Of course, a solar eclipse occurs when the moon lies perfectly between the sun and the earth, thus eclipsing
the solar disk. In contrast, a lunar eclipse occurs when the earth lies between the sun and moon and, thus, the moon is
hidden by the earth's shadow.
Note: The image below involving the eclipsed moon twenty minutes before third contact with
the penumbra (U3) was taken with very thin clouds passing through the field of view. The moon was barely visible to the
naked eye.
Note: For additional samples (with and without thin clouds), please click
here,
here,
here,
here and
here.
(First contact) |
(First contact) |
(Start of Totality) |
Totality |
(End of Totality) |
(Full) |
(End) |
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Body: Moon Mass: 0.0123 x Earth Mean Eq Diameter: 0.2719 x Earth Distance: 374,753 km Sidereal Rev: 27d 07h 43m 11s Age: 14d 19h 50m Diameter: 32.14' Saros Cycle: 130 Magnitude:
Duration:
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Date: June 15, 2011 23:43:49 UT+3 Location: Athens, Greece Equipment: AP 160 f/7.5 StarFire EDF AP 1200GTO GEM Canon EOS 350D Baader UV/IR-Cut Filter Exposure(s): 1 x 30 sec ISO 400 RAW image format 3456x2304 image size Manual Mode Software: Digital Photo Prof V2.1.1.4 Photoshop CS2 Processing: RAW to TIFF (16-bit) Conv Resampling JPG Compression |