Eclipse of the Moon On Thursday Morning

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 5, 7 January 1936, Page 7

Eclipse of the Moon On Thursday Morning

TIMES OF PHENOMENON. Tho first of a scries of four eclipses to occur in the present year will be visible throughout New Zealand in the early morning hours of Thursday, when the moon will undergo a total eclipse. The moon wi| enter the earth's penumbral shadow at 3.17 a.m. on Thursday. As the penumbra is a mixture of shadow and direct light the pcuumbral stage will result in a barely perceptible diminution of the moon’s light and the eclipse cannot be -rgarded as commencing in the popular souse until -4.2 S a.m., when the moon will enter the earth’s umbial shadow. The amount of observation will gradually increase until at 5.58 a.m. the moon will have completely entered the shadow and the total phase will commence. Mid-eclipse win occur at 0.9 a.m., but the total phase will continue until 0.21. The moon’s eastern limb will then emerge from the shadow and the amount of obscured disc will begin to decrease, but, as the moon will set at .about 0.30 a.m., five minutes after the cud of totality, the final stages of the eclipse will not be visible. As sunrise will occur early on Thursday morning during the total phase of the eclipse observers will be able to see the sun in the south-eastern sky, tho earth, whoso shadow is causing tho eclipse, and, low in the north-west, the totally eclipsed moon. The visibility at the same time of the three bodies concerned in the eclipse is naturally not of frequent occurrence.