Re: VMs: Astronomical Note -- New Eclipse Data

[JJJRLandau@xxxxxxx]

In a message dated 01/22/2003 1:07:30 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
rteague@xxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:

> List member Osmar Jardim has sent me a map, made at his
>  request by Professor Raul Varella, of the solar eclipse that
>  occured on 24 January 1544.
>  
>  The path of totality passes over Prague, confirming my own
>  research with Starry Night Pro.
>  
>  This strengthens my conviction that the diagram of f67r1 is
>  that event, but does not prove it. 
>  
>  The map is in a Word document, and I will be happy to pass
>  it along to anyone interested.

The map, as rendered into Microsoft Word, is too coarse-grained to give 
accurate locations (NOT the fault of  Messrs rteague, Jardim, or Varella, but 
the result of asking too much of Word graphics).  However, I was able to 
derive a partial answer to an earlier question: Was the eclipse total in any 
other major European city?

The eclipse, as best as I can determine from the map, started near St. 
Nazaire in Britanny and ran through or near Orleans, Strasburg, Nuremburg, 
Prague, Poznan, Gdansk (Dantzig), and Helsinki before ending somewhere in 
Lappland.  (Lat-longs: beginning around 47 degrees north 2 degrees west, 
Prague is at (approximately) 50 degrees north 14 degrees 30 minutes east, end 
of eclipse is somewhere around 69 degrees north 24 degrees east).

Whether the eclipse was total in any of the cities named (except Prague) I 
cannot tell from the map.  However, if not total, it must have been around 
95% or greater in each of these cities, which means that anything 
approximately round, even the gaps between leaves on trees, will show 
beautiful crescents on the ground.  

      - James A. Landau
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