A Hole in the Sun, a Small Bite Out of the Moon, and Monitoring a Minor Meteor Shower
© Gregg Pasterick
This annular eclipse differs from that of April in that it remains annular throughout; the Moon's angular diameter remains smaller than that of the Sun for the duration of the eclipse because of its distance from the Earth. In April, during that eclipse, the Moon drifted closer to the Earth, and the eclipse went from annular to total. Not so this time. What this means for observers in the middle of the eclipse, along the center of the path of the eclipse, is that about 2% of the sun will spill around the "hole" the Moon makes by getting between us and the Sun. For those who are not in the center of the path, but still within the path from which observers can see the entire Moon in front of the Sun, the "hole" will be off-center. Also, for those east and west of the center of the path, the "hole" is a little smaller.
The central path of the eclipse begins in the Atlantic Ocean at 7:34 U.T., and ends as 13:28 U.T. in the Indian Ocean. In between, it passes across Portugal and Spain and the Mediterranean Sea, over Algeria and Tunisia and Libya, the Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia. The northern limit of the partial eclipse passes across northern Europe and Russia; the southern limit covers portions of western and southern Africa and the Atlantic Ocean.
The partial eclipse of the Moon - a rather small bite out of the Moon - favors western North America and the Pacific. Observers in the east will see the Earth's umbra just begin to take that bite out of the Moon at Moonset/Sunrise. On the west coast the eclipse begins about 4:30 am local time, and is over before Sunrise. In Hawaii, it happens around midnight local time, and for the Aussies and their neighbors in eastern Asia it begins around Sunset.
Dark skies on the 8th, just three days after the New Moon, favor the Draconid, or Giacobinid meteor shower. As I wrote last year: "Historically, this shower has only been active during those years when its parent comet, comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner, is at perihelion, when said perihelion occurs during or near October. In between it is a minor, or non-existent meteor shower. This is because the meteor stream is still relatively young, and the meteoric particles are still bunched up near the comet itself."
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