Here Are Observation Times For Stages Of The Super Blood Moon Tomorrow Night

Diagram showing the conditions for  super blood Moon' total lunar eclipse tomorrow night. (From WSJ, Jan. 18, p. A3)


The excitement is building and the whole  astronomical community is readying  itself for the only total lunar eclipse of the year tomorrow night. And it will also be a "Super Blood Wolf Moon".  Why these terms? A 'blood Moon'  because the lunar surface appears reddish or ocher on account of being seen through the Earth's atmosphere. Thus, we observe the Moon, say in partial eclipse phase, as seen in the photo below:

 It is "super" in the sense of appearing larger than usual because of being much closer to the Earth, i.e. at its perigee point in orbit.  This has the Moon at 223, 000 miles distant as opposed to 251,000 miles at it apogee or most distant point. The 'wolf Moon'  just refers to a full Moon in January.   Nevertheless, it appears some stuffed shirt astronomers are upset at the use of the phrase for this total lunar eclipse (WSJ, today,  p. A1)  But as Zoe Learner of Cornell aptly put it, she has no problem as long as there are no inaccuracies., to which I concur.

As readers will gather from this discussion, lunar eclipses - which are relatively common (70 or so a year)-   only occur at the full Moon phase. The more detailed sketch below also helps to understand the stages of such eclipses:

Note the alignment (top) fixes the Sun at one end and the Moon at the other with Earth in between. The light  from the Sun - on intersecting the Earth -  produces a smaller, darker umbra and a lighter outer shadow cone called the penumbra.  If the lunar transit is such that the Moon (as seen from Earth ) only passes through the penumbra, we have a partial lunar eclipse.

If, on the other hand, the Moon passes through the darker umbra, we have a total lunar eclipse and what is called a "blood Moon" because the lunar surface appears reddish or ocher on account of being seen through the Earth's atmosphere. Thus, we observe the Moon as seen in the photo.

Now here are the eclipse stage time, all in Eastern standard time, which should be converted to your local standard time:

9: 36 p.m. -  Eclipse begins as Moon moves into the outer part of Earth's shadow (penumbra). The Moon appears slightly dim for about the next 37 minutes.

10:33 p.m. -   Moon starts to pass into the inner, darker part of the Earth's shadow (the umbra).  Moon will be seen to take on a darker hue.

11:41 pm.:   Moon will be completely inside the Earth's central shadow, and take on the reddish hue seen in the photo. See also above diagram. This total phase will last until 12: 43 a.m. when the Moon retreats from the central shadow and its color gets progressively lighter.

We will be out observing with our small refracting telescope. The good thing about the timing here is the next day is a federal holiday, so the kids ought to he able to stay up to see this natural wonder.  Much preferable to staring at cell phones!

Pertinent Facts To Know Concerning Today's Total Solar Eclipse

After reading an AP account of the eclipse in the Friday Denver Post, to the effect this "is the first total solar eclipse in 99 years" I knew it was time for another post to clarify. It turns out assorted year periods have been tossed around: "38 years", "99 years" etc. without providing a context.

First, let's note that - on average-  there are in fact two total lunar eclipses and two total solar eclipses every year. It's just that they mostly don't occur in or near populated areas. Second, the "first in 99 years" refers to the first coast to coast passage of the umbral shadow in that time. E.g. Our current track looks like this, from the Pacific coast of Oregon to the Atlantic coast of S. Carolina:


The "first solar eclipse in 38 years" refers to the first total solar eclipse to occur in the U.S. in 38 years.  Let's return to this general depiction of the solar eclipse (graphic below), and as can be seen, there is a central dark shadow cone (the umbra) and a lighter shadow cone (the penumbra).  Most Americans today will be in the cone of the penumbra and will have to travel to be within the umbra to see totality. That is,  the total blocking out of the Sun by the Moon as seen in the top image.


Many would-be viewers as well as media, also fail to grasp that the durations of viewing times, both for the partial eclipse and total, are variable.  For example, at Casper Wyoming, barely 350 mi. north of us, the partial phase of eclipse begins at 10:20 a.m. and totality begins at 11:43 a.m. Thus, there is an interval of 1 h 23 m from first contact to totality. The totality itself will last for a duration of  2m 26s.  But at Hopkinsville, KY, the partial eclipse begins at 11:56 a.m. local time and totality at 1:25 p.m..  It can be seen here the complete eclipse duration is longer in Hopkinsville, nearly 3 hrs. from first to last contact. The totality phase alone will be 2 m 40s (Carbondale, IL comes in a close second at 2 m 37 s).

What gives? Well, the speed of the umbral shadow moving across the country from Pacific to Atlantic coast, varies.   (The total time to cover the distance of 2,600 mi. is 1 h 33m.) Bear in mind- as the eclipse diagram above indicates -  the moon's shadow is being projected not onto a flat surface, but onto a sphere (Earth). Near the middle of the totality path, the shadow is moving at its slowest along the surface of the planet. But at the very beginning of the totality path, and at the very end, the shadow is striking Earth at a very oblique angle at these points. Indeed, given the fact the lunar shadow cone is tangent to the curved surface of the Earth one can say it is moving at "infinite speed".   In between, not so much. For instance, at Madras OR, the shadow speed will be about 2, 200 mph.  At Hopkinsville, KY it will be about 1, 450 mph. Thus, because of the significantly slower shadow speed, observers in Hopkinsville will enjoy a longer total phase for the eclipse, 14 seconds longer than at Madras. (Though people in Madras can brag about being among the first to see it.)

What about those special eclipse-viewing glasses? Basically, you will need them for all but the totality phase (assuming you can be in the totality band).  At that point (total eclipse) you can remove them because they become useless.  Besides, you'd miss one of the most spectacular sights, the solar corona.  Obviously, if you live outside the totality band area you will need to wear your glasses for whatever duration you're viewing.

During the first hour of the eclipse phase (i.e. from "first contact") few people would recognize anything unusual happening. No surprise given that not much of the Sun is being covered. But pay attention to the last 15 minutes or so before totality (again assuming you're lucky enough to be in the totality band and have clear weather) and note the sharpening shadows, changes in the light and sometimes cooling winds.  This is also the phase where the 'Globe Observer' group wants to get temperature measurements - going through the total phase. (See the end of my last post).

Without any doubt the most awesome period begins in the final minute before totality, when the Sun transitions from being 99 percent obscured to total coverage.  By some estimates, the sky gets about 10,000 times darker. It's absolutely eerie, as even assorted animals fall sway to the sudden change in light intensity: bees return to their hives, spiders take in their webs, birds cease their bird song etc.

Just before totality those lucky to be in the total band will behold the interplay of sunlight and mountains in profile on the lunar surface.  These produce a phenomenon called "Bailey's beads.'  Note how the last bead gleams brilliantly just as the Sun's corona becomes visible.

I hope everyone will be able to enjoy this event to the max, and maybe learn a bit about astronomy from it, even enticing further exploration. For myself, I will have to be content with watching it from televised accounts on the TV. Alas, wifey is still recuperating in the hospital after hip replacement surgery on Friday. Also she seems to be suffering from a rare complication that will make her recovery longer: injury to the lateral femoral cutaneous nerve.  It makes any kind of move on the right leg almost unbearable. So we will likely watch totality from her hospital room.

For the rest of you, get out there and enjoy this (almost) once in a lifetime experience!

No, There'll Be No "Blood Moon Apocalypse " In September!

"Blood Moon" visible in Barbados last April.

During a lecture I gave on lunar eclipses in 1975, several attendees - on seeing a slide image of the Moon at the total phase- expressed concern. "Did this bloody Moon not portend the last days or an apocalypse? Was it not one of the signs and wonders written about in the good Book? Should we not begin to prepare ourselves for the end?"

To all of these questions, and to the astonishment of the questioners, I answered a firm 'No'. The phenomenon was a totally natural event that occurred at least twice a year- due to an alignment of Earth, Moon and Sun and had no supernatural overtones. Nor should one extrapolate such overtones.   To grasp more clearly what is going on I show a sketch below of the lunar eclipse situation:



Note the alignment (top) fixes the Sun at one end and the Moon at the other with Earth in between. The light  from the Sun - on intersecting the Earth -  produces a smaller, darker umbra and a lighter outer shadow cone called the penumbra.  If the lunar transit is such that the Moon (as seen from Earth ) only passes through the penumbra, we have a partial lunar eclipse.

If, on the other hand, the Moon passes through the darker umbra, we have a total lunar eclipse and what is called a "blood Moon" because the luanr surface appears reddish or ochre on account of being seen through the Earth's atmosphere. Thus, we observe the Moon as seen in the photo.  A special case for attention is the lunar tetrad. This marks a consecutive sequence of four lunar eclipses, spaced s ix months apart. (The most recent blood Moon occurred in April ).

As may be inferred from the diagrams, on account of the Earth casting a much larger shadow than the Moon (say when there are solar eclipses) the duration of lunar eclipses is longer, including the total phase. An entire lunar eclipse can last for hours as opposed to minutes for the solar eclipse.

Having now dispensed with the notion there is anything supernatural regarding blood Moons and lunar eclipses, it is somewhat astonishing to note that here in the year 2015, there is a United States congressman who actually believes that a so-called blood Moon prophecy determines the fate of the Middle East as well as the fate of the world, of all of us. .

Says Rep. Jody Hice of Georgia:

“Blood moons have preceded world-changing, shaking-type events,”

WHICH ones? He doesn't say but never mind,  This balderdash is gaining surprising traction in conservative media, and is being adopted as legitimate by prominent figures, including Hice in Congress and the Family Research Council, the powerful social conservative lobbying group in Washington.

Ironically, as these yahoos are getting all worked up over blood Moons, we are facing a genuine catastrophe as now the pace of global warming appears on track for a 4C rise in global mean temperatures and even a 6C.  People in TX may not think their 34 trillion tons of rain pouring down causing flooding the past week has  anything to do with climate change - but they'd do well to rethink that. Anyone who's taken basic basics knows that a hotter atmosphere  (because of greenhouse gases like CO2) absorbs more moisture - and this can be triggered to pour down when that warmer, moister air encounters much colder air - as has been spinning off the Rockies the past couple weeks (seeing our night temperatures sometimes diving to 32 F or less)

It's true that singleton events or even temporary phases of weather do not "prove" global warming, but we are talking about a trend of  climate that has appreciably warmed the atmosphere over years enabling it to hold more water. More water, means more rain - depending on when and how it is triggered, whether in the NE or SW.

Anyway, we also know that mega-pastor John Hagee, the leading purveyor of blood Moon prophecy talk, is powerful in Washington, and able to command the attendance of influential conservative politicians to his events. According to Hagee here’s how the prophecy is supposed to shake out:

It was “discovered” that blood Moon tetrads  that coincide with traditional Jewish feasts and holidays announce world-historical moments for Jews; and because the fate of the Jewish people determines the fate of humanity, according to fundamentalist Christians, each of these revelations signals the approach of the End Times.

Thus, a blood Moon tetrad coinciding with Jewish holidays in 1493 is said to have marked the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and the European discovery of America. Another in 1948-49 signaled God’s pleasure with the founding of the state of Israel; and the next, in 1967-68, coincided with the Arab-Israeli Six-Day War, which allowed Israel to acquire Arab territory, much of which it still maintains. The occupied territory is considered prophetically necessary and in accord with Scripture by many conservative Christians.

But all of that was merely a prelude to the tetrad currently underway. The third blood Moon fell in April, and the final prophetic moon will occur in late September. This tetrad, according to the prophecy, signals the beginning of the end of the world. (Though strangely, we've yet to hear a peep from Hagee or anyone else in his camp of where the "AntiChrist" may be hanging out - and bear in mind there's supposed to be a 7-year reign before everything comes to perdition in the "Tribulation"

Ah - but WAIT! Earlier prophet and bloviator Hal Lindsey in his book 'The Late, Great Planet Earth', already forecast that was all to unfold in 1988 (using 'one generation' = 40 years, marked from the birth of the Jewish state in 1948.)  But a funny thing happened in 1988, nothing!

Never mind! The current crop of bumpkins is forecasting that the  apocalypse is coming this September. So it’s crunch time in the land of the apocalyptic crazies. All hands on deck! This is not a drill. As a heads up. on May 14, a large banner atop World Net Daily, the popular conservative Christian website, advertised its “exclusive” report on the four-month “countdown” to the “Biblical day of reckoning.”

In addition, in order to pump up the expectation and fear, a movie about the prophecy was released last month in theaters, and pastor John Hagee’s bestselling book about blood moons spent months on Amazon’s top 100 books list.  (I suspect it will meet the same eventual fate as Lindsey's effort.)

The impending doom even compelled Anne Graham Lotz, daughter of Rev. Billy Graham, to issue a call for a seven-day “mayday” prayer offensive, to appeal to God, with this warning to motivate:

“Institutions will collapse. Banks will close. The Stock Market will plunge. Planes will fall out of the sky. Cars will crash on the road. Government in America at every level will disintegrate. Families will be torn apart. In the unprecedented turmoil, our nation will be vulnerable for our enemies to seize the moment and attack us. There will be mass chaos, confusion, fear, grief, despair, anger, threats, danger… judgment.”

The Family Research Council urged its flock to heed Lotz’s call. And note: The FRC is not some ramshackle backwoods chapel filled with snake handlers; the well-heeled D.C. lobbying group’s “Values Voter Summit” in late summer will be a who’s who of conservatism, with Rush Limbaugh, Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Sean Hannity and a host of others expected to speak at the conference.

Again, all this huff and puff is going on while the actual, impending threat to humanity, global warming, is considered a “hoax,” a whole cloth invention by pointy-headed liberals and scientists,  Meanwhile the color of the moon and the spotty wisdom of goat herders from 3,000 years ago is stitched together into some kind of astro-hermeneutics, used to determine whether or not October happens.

John Hagee again:

“When you take scientific fact and historical fact and line it up exactly with prophetic fact and they all are in perfect agreement, now is time to put doubt aside and to believe that God is trying to communicate to us in a very special way…and something is about to change.”

The problem for Hagee and his Hag-ee-ites is that you can't use scientific facts to cook up codswallop.You cannot use science, in other words, to carry grist to the fantasy and superstition mill. If Hagee and his lot had any sense at all they'd instead be doing all they can to make sure that the 6C increase mark for warming isn't reached. If it is, they will have a real apocalypse to fret over - and alas, no one coming to "save" them. 

Accounting for the Solar Flares and Events In Solar Active Region 2017

The X-1 class flare (extreme upper right) that erupted on March 29, likely in a quadripolar sunspot group.

By now, most solar researchers are aware of the events associated with Active Region 2017 last month. Most remarkable was a major (X-1) class flare that erupted on March 29th, starting at 17:35 UT, peaking at 17:48 UT and ending at 17:54.  The area of impact on Earth affected large portions of its sunlit side especially at the sub-solar point. The flare was geo-effective, with high frequency radio communications blacked out for over an hour.  Other events associated with the flare also occurred, including:

- A 10 cm radio burst  with a peak of 360 solar flux units (SFU) from 17:45-17:48

- A Type II radio burst was observed at 17:53  with an estimated velocity of 508 km/sec.

In addition the region has been replete with M class flares (the x-ray scale is ascending from C to M to X) and the characteristic of the region is that it contains a delta class sunspot group. This is a category of group I've posted on previously, in conjunction with my own research.  Much of this focused on the events associated with this delta class group - which I photographed on 11/4/ 80 at its maximal extent:
The group itself marked the return of McMath plage region 17181, and first appeared on the sun's east limb on Oct. 30, 1980 with an area of 70 millionths of a solar hemisphere (msh). In other words, the area increased more than a factor 20 within a span of five days. By 1st November, the group was in the complex delta class, which is determined by the presence of mixed magnetic polarities in the same region. (The active region itself was given the designation AR2776).

Most conspicuous in the course of the group's evolution was the leader spot's pronounced, elliptical penumbra (outermost, lighter sector). This appeared to fragment from Nov. 6 which may have led to a steady decrease in total group area from that date. The emergence of a defined vortical structure in the penumbra occurred thereafter and was accentuated by the formation of a "light bridge" within the penumbra.

At issue, however, was whether it was indeed the delta morphology that led to the high flare occurrence, or something else.  Note that the qualifying entry to the delta class is umbrae - dark central  regions - separated by less than two degrees within one penumbra having opposite polarity. This condition leads to what we describe as a steep magnetic gradient, viz.

grad B = [+B_n - (-B_n)] / x

where the numerator denotes the difference in the normal components of the photospheric magnetic field (between opposite polarities of the active region) as measured by vector magnetograph, and the denominator is the scale separation (x) between them. In several iterations of the Solar-Terrestrial Workshops and Predictions Proceedings, it has been noted that when grad B exceeds  0.1 Gauss/km then a flare is 96% probable within 24 hrs.  Alas, it is not possible to forecast the specific x-ray class.

 Subsequent investigations I conducted disclosed it was more likely the presence of a magnetic multi-pole in a delta class spot that gave rise to large flares such as the one observed on March, 29 this year.


In the diagram shown, such a multipole sunspot model is depicted such that the most intense magnetic field locus is centered in the largest sunspot and is "line-tied" , i.e. it represents the anchored ‘foot’ of one magnetic arch with the other foot connected to a 2nd polarity (minor spot) executing proper motion around it.   In this case the dipole undergoes an approximate 28 degree proper motion over time interval (t2  - t1) during which the (-) polarity footpoint is displaced from a1 to a2.  Treating the region as localized in the complex plane (note the defined Re axis) it is possible to do extensive analysis of motions, shears, and behavior of the respective poles and spots. Such analyses are too comprehensive to go into here, in a blog post, but are described in my book, Selective Analyses in Solar Flare Plasma Dynamics - also available as an E-book.

Of special interest for really large, energetic solar flares are quadripolar sunspots. In one quadri-polar  analysis by Somov et al (Solar Phys., 1998) a series of magnetic charges was specified as:

(+B) <-> e (N)

(-C) <-> e (S)

+A <-> e (n)

-A <-> e (s)

Where the capital letters on the left denoted the identified loop foot points and the  'e' identifiers on the right specified the respective magnetic "charges"  or polarity centers. By establishing a "characteristic dynamic length"  ℓ  for the region, the researchers were able to use Poisson statistics to predict what the average flare production would be over time.

Much more work remains to be done, and plausibly we won't really have a major breakthrough until we can get a high resolution solar optical telescope. This would be of the type that had originally been planned in the 1980s (SOT-1),  designed as a "Hubble version" of a solar telescope dedicated entirely to fine-resolution optical observing but also equipped with:  a tunable filtergraph, a system of state of the art spectrographs, and a photometric filtergraph. All would be contained in a single housing called the 'Focal Plane Instrument Package'. This SOT-1  would have been able to resolve coronal and other structures to within 0.1 arcsec or better, and deliver spectacular real time photometric and spectrographic imagery and information.

 The SOT-1 was scrapped by the budget cutters because they believed mounting a "Star Wars" missile defense system was more important (never mind physicists later showed this program was useless, your classic 'white elephant').

Maybe the budget obsessive nitwits - who always seem to be able to find money for more wars or giving $1b to the Ukraine- will wake up when a large CME strikes and knocks out our power grids. At least one hopes they will, but who knows?