SOLAR AND LUNAR ECLIPSES.
Vaishnava perspective
of the significance of a Graha grasthah - eclipses.
last update 4th December 2011
http://spaceweather.com
Eclipses During 2011
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* 2011 Dec 10: Total Lunar Eclipse
http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/OH/OH2011.html#LE2011Dec10T
http://www.rasnz.org.nz/index.htm
Total eclipse of the Moon, 2011 December 10/11
During this total eclipse the Moon passes through the southerly part of the Earth's shadow so that the north of the Moon is deeper in the shadow. The southern edge of the Moon will not be far from the edge of the Earth's shadow, so is likely to be less dark than the north due to refraction of light in the Earth's atmosphere.
The total phase of this eclipse lasts for just over 50 minutes, with the partial umbral eclipse spanning over 3.5 hours. Most of the eclipse will be visible from New Zealand, the Moon setting during the final penumbral stage. This being a near mid-summer eclipse, the Moon will be low, and get very low in the latter stages. The whole of the eclipse is visible from Australia.
For New Zealand the Moon starts to enter the Earth's penumbral shadow just after 12.30am NZDT on the morning of December 11 and the umbral shadow just after 1.45am. Totality lasts from 3.16 to 3.57 with the deepest eclipse at 3.32 am NZDT. At that time the Moon will be 21° above the horizon in Auckland, 18° at Wellington, 17° at Christchurch and 15.5° at Dunedin and Invercargill. The Moon sets within a few minutes of 6am NZDT (17 hr UT) throughout New Zealand.
10/12/11 Lunar - Total
Mag: 1.102
Penumbral Starts:
11/12/2011 00:35
New Zealand Daylight Time
First Contact:
11/12/2011 01:47
New Zealand Daylight Time
Second Contact:
11/12/2011 03:07
New Zealand Daylight Time
Mid Eclipse:
11/12/2011 03:32
New Zealand Daylight Time
Third Contact:
11/12/2011 03:56
New Zealand Daylight Time
Fourth Contact:
11/12/2011 05:17
New Zealand Daylight Time
Penumbral Ends:
11/12/2011 06:28
New Zealand Daylight Time
http://www.rasnz.org.nz/Eclipses/2011Eclipses.htm#Moon2
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A full report on eclipses during 2011 will be published in Observer's
Handbook 2011.
All information is available for all lunar and solar eclipses for our region here http://www.rasnz.org.nz/index.htm
ECLIPSES DURING 2012
There are four eclipses predicted for 2012, two each of the Sun and
Moon. Of there three are visible from New Zealand, although very little
change will be visible during one of the lunar. eclipses. The second solar
eclipse in November will be total, but only visible as partial from New
Zealand, although seen as a very deep eclipse from the far north. The first
solar eclipse in May is annular, visible across the north Pacific Ocean,
Both the lunar eclipses are partial, in the second the moon will only pass through the penumbra of the Earth's shadow, resulting in little obvious change to the brightness of the moon.
The first solar eclipse of 2012 occurs on May 20. The path of the annular eclipse only crosses land near its beginning and end, the rest crossing the north Pacific. Being early summer in the northern hemisphere a partial eclipse will be visible from all parts of the Arctic as well as most of the Pacific Ocean north of the equator.
The second solar eclipse is on November 13. This is total, but the path of totality crosses even less land than May's annular eclipse. It starts at dawn in the north of Northern Australia. After crossing the Gulf of Carpentaria and York Peninsula including Cairns, the total eclipse path then heads across the southern Pacific, touching no further land.
The first lunar eclipse occurs on June 4. This will be a partial eclipse with, at most, 37% of the moon's diameter immersed in the Earth's umbral, that is total shadow. The remainder of the moon will be in the penumbra. All phases of the eclipse are visible from New Zealand and most of Australia.
The second lunar eclipse is on November 28. In this case the moon only moves through the penumbra of the Earth's shadow, so there will be little obvious change. The entire eclipse is visible from New Zealand, on the early morning of November 29 NZDT. The moon will be very low at the end of the eclipse.
Annular
eclipse of the Sun May 20. No part visible from New Zealand.
Partial
eclipse of the Moon June 4/5, all stages visible from New Zealand.
Total
eclipse of the Sun November 13. Visible as a partial eclipse from New
Zealand.
Penumbral
eclipse of the Moon November 28/29, visible from New Zealand.
All diagrams and predictions used on this page have been prepared with
the aid of the OCCULT 4 program written by David Herald.
Please visit http://spaceweather.com
for eclipse maps, timetables and photos.
(See also NASA's solar eclipse pages and NASA's Lunar eclipse pages)
The world meeting planner is a useful tool in this regard http://www.worldtimezone.com/time/wtzplanner.php?m=8&y=2008#
Map of Solar Eclipses until 2020:
NASA's Solar Eclipse list 2001 - 2010 - 2011 Very useful maps and graphix
Solar Eclipse computer - http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/SolarEclipse.html
(Longitude and Latitude and Time zone found on top of Vcal calender)
computes circumstances for selected solar eclipses at any given location
(http://aa.usno.navy.mil/)
Lunar Eclipse computer - http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/LunarEclipse.html
(Longitude and Latitude and Time zone found on top of Vcal calender)
computes circumstances for selected solar eclipses at any given location
(http://aa.usno.navy.mil/)
Scroll down to the red Form B - Locations Worldwide Just type in your town or city and click on Place Name. Then click on Get Data, very simple.
With all Solar & Lunar Eclipses (do not cook, eat, etc. Only Chant Hare Krishna) see eclipses-page
For more details on Graha-grashtha - Solar and Lunar Eclipses please view our page
Here's a new page of quoting what
to do during Solar and Lunar Eclipses
Just a heads up to alert you that next Gaura purnima there will be a total eclipse of the Moon visible in India and hence Mayapura. The eclipse starts after midnight in Mayapura on Gaura Purnima (see details below) so technically by the yavana calendar it will be on March 4, 2007 but since the day starts at sunrise by Krsna's Vedic system it will still be Gaura Purnima day.
For more information go to:
Click on it to enlarge the image.
You will see two diagrams:
1 of the Moon moving through the shadow with annotations such P1, U1, U2 etc
2 of the map of the earth showing where the eclipse will be visible.
On the right hand side between these two diagrams you will see a table of times called "Eclipse contacts" which give you the time in UT - Universal Time--which for all intents and purposes is the same as GMT for non-astronomers like us. To convert it to IST we need just add 5:30.
The important ones are U1-U4 that is when the Moon enters the actual shadow (Rahu) aka the umbra, hence U1 is when it enters and U4 is when it leaves. U2-U3 are the times of maximum eclipse and it will be a total eclipse in which the Moon will look dark red assuming of course that the sky will be clear so as to be visible, which it should be at that time of year.
Note that the eclipse starts (U1) at 3:00 AM IST and ends (U4) at 6:42 IST the ending time will not be visible because the Sun will have risen (6:01AM) in Mayapur by then.
But note that the times of maximum and thus total eclipse U2-U3 will be from 4:14AM-5:28AM and that the sun will not rise until 6:01 AM. That means that basically from 3:00AM till sunrise Mayapura will be subjected to the eclipse with the maximum phase during mangala arotika.
The time for the beginning of the penumberal phase P1 is not relevant to us because for all practical purposes we can not notice any thing and it is of academic interest to astronomers with sensitive light sensing meters. For more explanation of this see:
http://www.hermit.org/Eclipse/why_lunar.html
and read the section explaining it where it says: "From Earth, when the Moon passes through the penumbra we see it dimming due to the reduced light, although in practice this can be hard to see with the eye."
We had experience of such a penumberal eclipse earlier this year and saw absolutely no effect on the Moon. It was a complete dud. So I would just ignore the time between P1 and U1.
But from 3:00 am till sunrise Mayapura Dham will experience the eclipse so what ever measures that are to be taken during such events should be organized. In many temples in S India they close down completely for example even though the September 7, 2006 eclipse is only a very partial eclipse (less than 20%) the Balaji temple is closing. I do not know what standards the Gaudiya Vaisnavas follow for such events but I suppose that this is the time to find out.
Your humble servant
Shyamasundara Dasa
Space Weather News for March 1, 2007
http://spaceweather.com
TOTAL LUNAR ECLIPSE: Set aside some time this weekend for sky watching. On Saturday night, March 3rd, there's going to be a total eclipse of the Moon. This means the Moon will glide through the heart of Earth's shadow and turn a beautiful shade of sunset red. Totality can be seen from parts of all seven continents including all of Europe and Africa and the eastern half of North America.
Visit http://spaceweather.com for observing tips, maps and links to live webcasts.
Lunar Eclipse Gallery (photos from a similar eclipse in 2004): http://spaceweather.com/eclipses/gallery_27oct04_page2.html
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