On 12/19/2010 01:28 PM, Mauro Lacy wrote: > Here's an open version of the same database: > http://www.hermit.org/Eclipse/when_search.shtml > I've downloaded the raw file, and after searching for total lunar > eclipses from Dec 19 to Dec 23, post Oct 15 1582(before that, Julian > dates are used), I've found the following "solstice eclipse" candidates: > > 1638|12|21|01:59|L|T|N-|119||-0.139|2.632|1.605|12960|5760||| > 1703|12|23|06:30|L|T|S-|120||0.025|2.891|1.763|14160|6360||| > 1768|12|23|15:07|L|T|S-|121||0.060|2.770|1.757|12840|6000||| > 1945|12|19|02:20|L|T||124||-0.284|2.355|1.348|12360|4800||| > 1964|12|19|02:37|L|T||134||0.380|2.171|1.180|11760|3600||| > 2010|12|21|08:17|L|T||125||0.321|2.306|1.261|12600|4440|||
Wolfram Alpha gives solstice dates for each year easily. According to wolframalpha, the (northern hemisphere) winter solstice for the year 1703 occurred Saturday, December 23, 7:04 am LMT. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1703+northern+hemisphere+winter+solstice+date LMT stands for Local Mean Time(an old form of timezone, it seems), because wolfram alpha likes to give local times, based on the location of the questioner. Searching on how to convert from LMT to GMT(UT), for western latitudes you have to add the local latitude in degrees divided by 15 degrees. So, 7:04 am LMT in my latitude is around 11:04 am GMT. The last time an eclipse coincided with a (northern hemisphere winter) solstice, then, was December 23, 1703. Not that this is important, of course, but is in the name of precision, and of course, of being picky. According to the same, the winter solstice date for 1638 was 12:20 pm LMT, Tuesday, December 21. That date is around 16 pm GMT for my latitude, so the lunar eclipse of that day is out of the 24 hours rule established before(by a margin of about 2 hours), even when it happened on the same calendar day. Calculating the precise solstice time for the year 1554 is left as an exercise for the picky.
