Archive
08/08/2017 – Ephemeris – Eclipse seasons
Ephemeris for Monday, August 7th. The Sun rises at 6:36. It’ll be up for 14 hours and 23 minutes, setting at 8:59. The Moon, at full today, will rise at 9:00 this evening.
At two weeks before the great solar eclipse, the world is experiencing another eclipse, this one is a partial lunar eclipse where the Moon will just clip the northern part of the Earth’s shadow this afternoon our time. It will be mainly visible from Asia. Eclipses occur in seasons of about a month long that occur at a bit less than six month intervals, so eclipses will occur a little earlier next year to the this. That’s because the crossing points of the Moon’s and the Earth’s orbital planes regress slowly westward. In an eclipse season two eclipses will occur: a solar and a lunar eclipse. On rare occasion when a lunar eclipse occurs in the center of a season a partial solar eclipse can occur two weeks before and again after the lunar eclipse, but they will affect the opposite polar regions of the Earth.
The times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.
Addendum
Table of this and next three eclipse seasons
| Date | Eclipse Type | Notes |
| 08/07/2017 | Lunar Eclipse – partial | Moon clips northern part of Earth’s umbra |
| 08/21/2017 | Solar Eclipse – total | Path of totality crosses US |
| 01/31/2018 | Lunar Eclipse – total | Moon crosses just south of center of umbra |
| 02/15/2018 | Solar Eclipse – partial | Visible mostly from Antarctica |
| 07/13/2018 | Solar Eclipse – partial | Seen from southern Australia |
| 07/27/2018 | Lunar Eclipse – total | Moon crosses center of umbra |
| 08/11/2018 | Solar Eclipse – partial | Seen from northern Europe, Asia |
| 01/06/2019 | Solar Eclipse – partial | Seen mostly from northern Pacific Ocean |
| 01/21/2019 | Lunar Eclipse – total | Moon crosses just north of center of umbra |
