SPACE.com -- The Crazy Nature of Eclipse Timing


	The Crazy Nature of Eclipse Timing By Joe Rao Special to SPACE.com posted: 07:00 am ET 25 April 2003

The schedule of total lunar eclipses differs notably from that of total solar eclipses in that with solar eclipses we can -- generally speaking -- expect totals to come about every 18 months on average

The schedule of total lunar eclipses differs notably from that of total solar eclipses in that we can -- generally speaking -- expect total solar eclipses to come about every 18 months on average. In the case of lunar eclipses however, totals seem to come in clusters of two or three over a time span of 12 to 18 months, followed by a lull of two or three years before another round.

The upcoming situation is a rather exceptional case: between May 15, 2003, and October 28, 2004, there will be no fewer than four total lunar eclipses!

Put another way, over a span of less than 18 months, a total lunar eclipse will occur at roughly six-month intervals. And it turns out that three of those four eclipses will be visible from New York and other parts of the U.S. East Coast.

In fact, I suspect that by October 2004, some folks might even be saying "Another total eclipse of the Moon? Big deal!"

It doesn't always work out this way, of course. In fact, there was a total lunar eclipse "drought" from Dec. 30, 1982, to Aug. 18, 1989, for the New York region: not a single one was visible during that time frame spanning nearly seven years. Other parts of the world were treated to several totalities during that same interval, but unfortunately, in our part of the world [Joe lives near New York] all of those eclipses happened to occur during the daytime when the Moon was below our respective horizons.

And yet, after October 2004, the next total lunar -- visible anywhere on Earth -- doesn't occur until March 2007!

The November 2003 lunar eclipse will indeed be visible across much of the United States, although in a similar fashion to the upcoming (May 15) eclipse, the Moon will rise already in partial eclipse.

Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for The New York Times and other publications, and he is also an on-camera meteorologist for News 12 Westchester, New York.

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