Mark your Calandar!

We love, love, love Astronomy using the Exploring Creation With... series. We just finished a Chapter about the sun ending it with some "extras" like looking up when we will next get to experience an eclipse. I found the date for the next nearest date for us (W. US) to experience an Annular Eclipse.

May 20th, 2012!

And if you happen to be in the S. Pacific or in Australia for whatever reason in November of the same year, you may be able to see a total eclipse. Or you may want to think about a family vacation in n Atlantic, Faeroe Is, or Svalbard to be able to see the next total eclipse three years after that- to the date.

If you are scratching your head over the meaning of Annular or Total, that's okay. I'll see if these definitions will help:

Partial - Moon's penumbral shadow traverses Earth (umbral and antumbral shadows completely miss Earth)
Annular - Moon's antumbral shadow traverses Earth (Moon is too far from Earth to completely cover the Sun)
Total - Moon's umbral shadow traverses Earth (Moon is close enough to Earth to completely cover the Sun)
Hybrid - Moon's umbral and antumbral shadows traverse Earth (eclipse appears annular and total along different sections of its path). Hybrid eclipses are also known as annular-total eclipses.


Still don't get it? Maybe this picture would make it a bit clearer:

Annular Eclipse:


Partial Eclipse:


Total Eclipse:


Hybrid Eclipse:



Very Cool!