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Eclipses and Other Phenomena: Eclipses

What is an Eclipse?

2024 Partial Eclipse Map

2024 Partial Eclipse Map (U.S.) Credit: NationalEclipse.com

Eclipse

  • ​An event that occurs when the shadow of a planet or moon falls upon a second body (Sky and Telescope)
  • A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon’s shadow falls upon Earth, which we see as the Moon blocking the Sun. When Earth’s shadow falls upon the Moon, it causes a lunar eclipse
  • An eclipse can involve other planets. The gas giant planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune) have many moons and thus frequently display eclipses
  • Orbiting spacecraft can also be involved in an eclipse.  In July 1975, as part of NASA's Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, the Apollo was positioned to create an artificial eclipse, giving the Soyuz crew the opportunity to photograph the solar corona.
Sources: NASA; Encyclopedia Brittanica; Wikipedia

Resources: Eclipses

Other titles:

Séguier collection of astronomical publications and manuscripts (1653)

The longitude discovered by the eclipses, occultations, and conjunctions of Jupiter's planets : with descriptions of those refracting and reflecting telescopes; and of those sectors, and that quadrant, which are the instruments necessary for this discovery, both at land and sea.  (1742)

A plain method of determining the parallax of Venus, by her transit over the sun : and from thence, by analogy, the parallax and distance of the sun, and of all the rest of the planets (1757)

The universe and the coming transits : presenting researches into and new views respecting the constitution of the heavens: together with an investigation of the conditions of the coming transits of Venus. Recently confirmed by a unanimous vote of the chief astronomers of Great Britain (1874)

The Trouvelot astronomical drawings manual (1882)

In pursuit of a shadow : (Two eclipse journeys) (1890)

Remarkable eclipses : a sketch of the most interesting circumstances connected with the observation of solar and lunar eclipses, both in ancient and modern times (1901)

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