I didnt see the eclipse the other night but someone mentioned to me that it was odd it went southeast to norhtwest and back again, is this normal for an eclipse, I am unsure

what is the proper route it should take

I have a bit of trouble beliving that's a real question, but I will treat it as such. An ecilpse of the moon is when the earth's shadow falls on the moon. It has zero change in the normal path of the moon. Unlike the observed path of the planets, the moon never changes course and goes back again. It always follows the east to west path of the ecliptic, just like the sun does. And it rises about 50 minutes or so later every day.
No big surprises or shocks here, simple Astronomy.


If you want to understand why the planets sometimes have "retrograde motion", it can be explained. But that might be better in a diffrent forum or better yet from a book on astronomy. But very basically, it's like when you are in a car and you pass someone on the highway. Even though you are both moving forward it can look like the other car is going backwards.

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Now, this isn't some kind of personal attack or condescending remark - I'm just curious. In fact we all may be somewhat curious. This question will help us understand how we should answer your many questions, some of which I believe may be perfectly good questions - depending on age.

How old are you shywatcher?

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jest

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my age is 21

Ok, as I said, just curious.

Have you followed astronomy much in the past or is it a new interest?

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jest

"Don't worry, everything is getting nicely out of control." -Douglas Adams

Here's a timelapse photo capturing the entire eclipse. Look with your own eyes and see if the moon did anything odd.

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Wonderful picture!

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The Zetas made me do it.

Oh great, there was something else in that pic along the horizon, left from center. Now you've done it.. lol.

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jest

"Don't worry, everything is getting nicely out of control." -Douglas Adams

no i am new to astronomy

Ok, excellent. You will find a lot of answer to any questions you have on astronomy, though some of them may be more suited for another forum within this board. However your question about the moon is valid based on the knowledge you may have yet to acquire. I don't see why some of us couldn't handle answering a few basic questions that will allow you to understand the nature of astronomy a bit better..

I just noticed that, I'm sure skywatcher will be off and running with this new evidence.

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"There is no greater illusion than fear. Whoever can see through all fear will always be safe. " --Lao-Tsu

One thing's for sure, that photo makes a beautiful desktop wallpaper.

I grabbed it from spaceweather.com. They have a growing gallery of very nice pictures taken of the lunar eclipse. http://www.spaceweather.com/eclipses...y03_page4.html

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"There is no greater illusion than fear. Whoever can see through all fear will always be safe. " --Lao-Tsu

The "thing" left of center is probably an aircraft. San Francisco International Airport is in that direction and the path is one an aircraft would take.

It is a lovely picture, wish I had taken it!

Along with the eight clearly visable UFOs on the left, there's also "something suspicious" at 10oclock from the right bridge tower and another "anomaly" to the right of that tower just above the hill. I just call them PX2 and PX3. :roll:
www.chipman.org/starhoax/Eclipse_PXs.jpg

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I must not PX. PX is the mind-killer. I will face my PX. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the PX has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

Hmmmmmmm!

Hehe! Well, at least the moon didn't do anything odd.

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"There is no greater illusion than fear. Whoever can see through all fear will always be safe. " --Lao-Tsu

Hmm. Couple comments. First, that picture does not show the entire eclipse - it only shows half of it. In the entire eclipse, the moon would go dark and then come light again.

I think what Skywatcher's acquantaince was referring to was that the Earth's shadow seemed to change direction on the moon, going off in the same direction it came on. I say this because my Mom in fact mentioned basically the same thing (I didn't stay up to watch the moon's reappearance, but she did). What we saw from our location as the moon "went away" was the shadow essentially coming up from the bottom to cover the moon. Mom said that when the moon returned from behind the shadow, it reappared from the top down. In other words, it seemed as if the shadow moved up to cover the moon, then back down to uncover it.

This happened because of the fact that the Earth's shadow is much larger than the moon and the moon moved through the shadow off-center. Look at this graphic showing how the moon moved through the shadow. Now keep in mind how the moon moves through the sky - the physical edge of the moon that comes up over the horizon first in the east is going to go under the horizon first in the west. In other words, what's "up" when the moon rises is "down" when the moon sets.

So if you look at how the moon moved through the shadow and account for the couple of hours of movement of the moon across the sky, it's clear that from the perspective of someone watching, the shadow would not appear to move "straight across" the moon.

I think that's what the person talking to Skywatcher was referring to.

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SeanF

"Ask to understand, but don't challenge unless you have the knowledge."--NEOWatcher

The contents of this post are ©2010 by SeanF and may not be copied or retransmitted in any form without the express written consent of SeanF

Good point SeanF. I'm familar with that and didn't even think about it.
However, I do have a question about the upcoming eclipse. http://www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/vi...?p=91126#91126

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I must not PX. PX is the mind-killer. I will face my PX. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the PX has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.