"DOUBLE MOONS" AND "DOUBLE ECLIPSES"; THE REST OF THE STORY":
SECOND LUNAR ECLIPSE OF 2007: DUE AUGUST 28TH:
THE REST OF THE STORY:
As Molly has made plain in a previous post (see'What's All This Double Moon Stuff' earlier today) there will not be either any "double Moon" or "double eclipse" on the upcoming lunar eclipse in the early morning of August 28th. It will be the regular and ordinary lunar eclipse. Yet... is there a "real" "double Moon" or a "double eclipse" ?
The Astroblog site previously mentioned on this blog actually has a photograph of an apparent "double Moon" posted on their site. See http://astroblogger.blogspot.com/2007/07/double-moon.html . This is an optical illusion, but the photograph is "rather attractive" showing the waning(or is it "waxing" because it was taken from the southern hemisphere in Australia ?-more on this later) crescent Moon. Have a look.
There is also a real "double eclipse" referred to as "selenelion" or a "selenehelion" eclipse. This is a rather rare event which can only occur when both the Moon and the Sun are at the horizon when the eclipse occurs. This is also referred to as an "horizontal eclipse". The last time that this occurred was during the lunar eclipse of May 16th over Europe. For this event to occur it has to be either just prior to sunset or just before sunrise. Molly never expects to see such an event in her lifetime, but I really have to look into this. When an "horizontal eclipse" occurs the Sun and Moon visibly eclipse each other as they are rising or setting.
So.. "that's the rest of the story".
3 comments:
Last week (probably Thursday, Nov 6, 2008 about 5:00 - 5:15 pm) I saw what appeared to be a jagged half of the moon covering the regular shaped moon. What caused this?
I wouldn't know. The phase was the first 1/4 so I assume you saw some optical illusion concerned with that phase. Where do you live ? How close to the horizon was the moon at the time ? What were the cloud conditions ? Temperature ? Etc..
Correct me if i'm wrong, but a selenelion can be seen during any partial eclipse of the Moon if you are the right place, there being a rather narrow range, and only a few minutes to catch it, and no clouds in the way...
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