Promoting Nancy’s photography and educating the public about nature, photography, and God

A Nighttime Solar Eclipse?

When I tried to print our second 26″ by 36″ canvas copy of “Eclipse Over Long Pine Key”, the colors were as shown below. I thought one of the ink cartridges must be empty, or the printer had a clogged nozzle or something. I pulled out the roll of canvas, performed a cleaning, and did a nozzle check, all of which went well. So I did a small (5″ by 7″) test print on luster paper. It turned out the same way. It was late, so I just shut off the printer and went to bed. The next morning the printer passed all tests, and I was able to make the correct print with no problem. I’ve never had that problem before or since. I was intrigued by the picture and kept the small print as a memento.  I have no idea how to duplicate this image.

Nighttime Solar Eclipse?

Often, when people see the original version hanging in our booth at an art festival, many think it shows a time-lapse of the moon’s phases.  I assure them that although the moon plays a crucial role, it is not directly visible in the image. Below is an animation showing the three different celestial events involving the moon.  A solar eclipse happens only during the day when the moon is new. A lunar eclipse only happens on a night with a full moon.  In the animation, both of those are total eclipses, while both versions of our “Eclipse Over Long Pine Key” show only a partial solar eclipse.  The third part of the animation shows a complete lunar cycle with all the moon’s phases.  In this case, unlike the other two events, the edge of the obscured part of the celestial body will always touch both poles.

Moon Animations
To see the Note click here.To hide the Note click here.
While all parts of this animation are drawn to scale as seen from the Earth, the time compression is different for each celestial event.

Comments

One response to “A Nighttime Solar Eclipse?”

  1. […] This could be considered a trick question. As the second drawing (hidden in first note) suggests, the geometry of a lunar eclipse is totally different from a solar eclipse and so the relative sizes of the shadow and the object being shadowed are completely different. Our last animated illustration shows the relative size of the Earth and moon (shadow) from the sun (under specific conditions) during a solar eclipse, but for a lunar eclipse imagine the Earth is the Earth’s shadow as the moon (in the place of the moon’s shadow) goes behind it. As the moon flies into the shadow, that event is visible simultaneously wherever the moon can be seen. For another (possibly better) view, see the second illustration in “A Nighttime Solar Eclipse?”. […]

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