Get ready for the eclipse that saved Columbus

Get ready for the eclipse that saved Columbus

Feb 18 06:54 PM US/Eastern

Wednesday's Total Lunar Eclipse To Be Colorful


The Moon will turn an eerie shade of red for people in the western hemisphere late Wednesday and early Thursday, recreating the eclipse that saved Christopher Columbus more than five centuries ago.
In a lunar eclipse, the Sun, Earth and Moon are directly aligned and the Moon swings into the cone of shadow cast by the Earth.

But the Moon does not become invisible, as there is still residual light that is deflected towards it by our atmosphere. Most of this refracted light is in the red part of the spectrum and as a result the Moon, seen from Earth, turns a coppery, orange or even brownish hue.

Lunar eclipses have long been associated with superstitions and signs of ill omen, especially in battle.

The defeat of the Persian king Darius III by Alexander the Great in the Battle of Gaugamela in 331 BC was foretold by soothsayers when the Moon turned blood-red a few days earlier.

And an eclipse is credited with saving the life of Christopher Columbus and his crew in 1504.

Stranded on the coast of Jamaica, the explorers were running out of food and faced with increasingly hostile local inhabitants who were refusing to provide them with any more supplies.

Columbus, looking at an astronomical almanac compiled by a German mathematician, realised that a total eclipse of the Moon would occur on February 29, 1504.

He called the native leaders and warned them if they did not cooperate, he would make the Moon disappear from the sky the following night.

The warning, of course, came true, prompting the terrified people to beg Columbus to restore the Moon -- which he did, in return for as much food as his men needed. He and the crew were rescued on June 29, 1504.

The Moon will be in total eclipse from 0301 GMT to 0351 GMT. This will be visible east of the Rocky Mountains in North America, as well as in all of Central and South America, West Africa and Western Europe. The zenith of totality is close to French Guiana.

It will be in partial eclipse from 0143 GMT to 0301 GMT, visible west of the Rockies and from the eastern Pacific, and from 0351 GMT to 0509 GMT, visible across the rest of Africa and Europe and much of South and West Asia.

Under a partial eclipse, Earth's shadow, or umbra, appears to take a "bite" out of the Moon.

The last total lunar eclipse took place on August 28 2007. The next will take place on December 21 2010.

A solar eclipse happens when the Moon swings between the Earth and the Sun.

The timing of this eclipse is interesting, couple with the fact they they are going to try and shoot down the malfunctioning satellite on Wednesday. The Bible foretells of a a chain of events....well, here's the skinny:

Rev. 6:12-15

12 And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood;

13 And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.

14 And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.

15 And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains;

Personally, I'll be watching the skies on Wednesday! :sun1:

I'm just an amateur when it comes to significance of celestial events, but We go from Aquarius to Pisces, and total eclipse is in Virgo. It seems the significance of water and earth (Pisces and Virgo) coupled with change (the eclipse) is harbinger, not of doom(emotional), but of a cleansing, a wave of emotions that may be too much for water critters, but I don't intend to drown. I tend to bathe in the luxury of Gaia and Neptunus when they do all the "splashin" around in the bathtub :lol!:

Dark Moon Mother (a translation/aliteration of Rowena Pattee Kryder's "Faces of the Moon Mother":

There are times when I go to the sea
Primal Seas of Void, there to walk among
The Cosmic cycles, true myths nature brings
A golden column all the way to heaven
Great white flashing wings
Transfusions of compassion into the earth I dissappear.
I cross the sea of darkest night in the boat of my body

Vehicle of Light, now surrounded by the darkest cloak
Oh dear God, oh dear Son of Suns, my lover,
Help me to release all that is not love
Help me to release all that is not truth
Help me to release all that is not justice
Help me to release all that is not natural.

Gently I go into the dark for I and my god are a light unto myself
I rise above you in spiraling waves of beauty passing but for a moment
Where the essence of all light beings will emerge.

Aww, it was cloudy here so we didn't even catch a glimpse.

I got to see the whole thing from my window. We had a clear sky. It was very beautiful and, the red moon was exactly, I mean exactly the same shade,shape, background of the pic I posted (made several years ago).

It was really very beautiful, and for what it's worth, I feel tired (unusually so) as well......