AN ECLIPSE
FOR EARLY RISERS!
This winter there
are some celestial delights for the skywatchers that may be visible
even from the polluted city skies. The most immediate of these
events is set for the 9th of November.
A lunar eclipse,
it will be an intriguing sight to those who have a good access
to the western skies towards the horizon. Intriguing, because
the Moon will be setting even as the eclipse would be in progress.
In fact, from India, we will be missing a goodish portion of the
eclipse.
The penumbral part
of the eclipse will begin at 3:45 AM. But this will not be visible.
The visible part of the eclipse will begin at 5:02 AM. The total
phase of the eclipse will begin at 6:36 AM. But the Moon will
set, as seen from Delhi, by 6:42 AM. The moonset for Kolkata is
at 5:46 AM while it is 6:46 AM for Mumbai. India as a whole will
miss the later phases of the eclipse. The eastern parts of the
country will miss even the beginning of the totality. Even the
phases which should be visible from India - from 5:02 AM onwards,
until the moonset, will be difficult to view because the Moon
will be very close to the horizon and the chances of haze and
clouds obscuring the view are higher. However it should there
be no haze or cloud interference, it will be an eerie view early
in the morning - a large yellow Moon about to set against the
city skyline - slowly turning a reddish hue as the eclipse progresses.
We know why eclipses
take place. To many who only read about them in the papers and
do not usually watch them, they may seem rather mundane these
days. But, watch any eclipse and there is always a thrill of seeing
something happening that still seems mysterious in spite of all
our knowledge about eclipses. Particularly, if one were to watch
the totality of a solar or a lunar eclipse at some odd hours of
the night - or early in the morning, as will happen with this
eclipse.
No wonder then, that
Shakespeare used a lunar eclipse comparison in Macbeth
to accentuate the eeriness of the scene with the three witches!
Lunar eclipses have also been mentioned by Kalidasa in his works.
Many readers may
recall reading in some novel or the other about an occidental
traveller in strange lands, threatened by their inhabitants, who
is able to extricate himself from difficulties by the chance remembering
of an eclipse (of the Sun, mostly), that is to take place just
then. This now seems like a cliché, having been used in
literature again and again. Even Enid Blyton used it. One may
also recall it from Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines.
The earliest such usage, perhaps, was by Mark Twain, in A Connecticut
Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.
Strangely enough,
this is based on a very real incident. Columbus, during one of
his later trips across the Atlantic, had been stranded at a small
port in Jamaica when his ships became unusable. The initial friendliness
of the island’s inhabitants slowly turned into hostility and Columbus
and his men stopped getting their necessities from the island’s
inhabitants unlike before. Columbus was carrying with him an almanac
and astronomical ephemeres, that had been compiled by Regiomontanus,
a scientist. He was aware that a lunar eclipse was to happen around
that time and he did use this knowledge to impress the local inhabitants
and make them bow to his wishes if they did not wish to incur
the wrath of some dark forces that could turn the Moon red! Other
than using this incident in his novel, while turning the lunar
eclipse into a solar one, Mark Twain also mentions seeing a lunar
eclipse while on a voyage, when just within sight of the Equator
in his travelogue. It reads, "Following the Equator, - September
4. Total eclipse of the moon last night. At 1.30 it began to go
off. At total—or about that—it was like a rich, rosy cloud with
a tumbled surface framed in the circle and projecting from it—a
bulge of strawberry-ice, so to speak. At half-eclipse the Moon
was like a gilded acorn in its cup. So, do take the effort
to be outside well before sunrise, on the 9th of November to watch
some phases, at least, of this eclipse. The Moon happens to be
located in a particularly beautiful part of the sky at this time,
surrounded by the bright winter constellations of Orion, Taurus,
Auriga, Gemini and the rest of that gang. Saturn is also visible
as you move from the Moon, towards the zenith, while the bright
Jupiter will be visible in the opposite direction towards the
eastern horizon.
The worldwide visibility
for the 9th of November eclipse is shown in the accompanying map.
The eclipse will be visible from Europe, most parts of Africa
and eastern parts of the Americas. Asia, however, will witness
the eclipse only during its beginning phases. After this November
eclipse, the next eclipse that we can see will be on the 4th of
May, 2004. All the phases of this eclipse will be visible from
India.(PIB Features)
*Contributed
by Dr. N. Rathnasree, Director, Nehru Planetarium, New Delhi
