Eclipses and meteor showers
Shadow geometry and dust: which dates are real, where you have to stand, and the difference between a rate on paper and a rate in the sky.
Eclipses
2 guides filed under this heading
- Solar and lunar eclipses: same geometry, opposite experience
One is visible from half a planet for an hour, the other from a strip 200 km wide for minutes. The sizes of the two shadows explain everything.
3 min read - Why eclipses arrive in seasons, roughly 173 days apart
The Moon's orbital nodes drift backwards once every 18.6 years, which puts new and full moons near the Sun–Earth line twice a year — and not otherwise.
3 min read
Meteor Showers
1 guide filed under this heading
- Meteor showers: what ZHR means, and why the number never happens
A shower's published rate assumes a perfect sky and the radiant overhead. Here is what the figures mean and how to pick a night that is worth staying up for.
4 min read
Reference pages
Tables and lookups on the same filing, answered without reading around it
- Eclipses 2026–2035: dates, types and where each one is visible
Every solar and lunar eclipse through 2035, from NASA's catalog: date, type, greatest eclipse in UTC, magnitude, duration and the region that sees it.
Other topics on Meridian
Every guide on this site is filed under one of these
The Moon
Phase, rise, set, distance and the illusions in between — what the Moon actually does, computed for a place and a date rather than described.
The Sun and the seasons
Day length, solar noon, twilight and the off-center clock: why the earliest sunset is not on the shortest day, and why the equinox is not twelve hours.
The night sky
Constellations, precession, what your latitude hides from you, and how much of it light pollution has already taken.