The Eclipse, the Eclipse!!

[vorlon13]

And looking at the big picture:


Here we have a nice, comfortable G2 star.  And a tidally evolved moon, which is large enough to be reasonably spherical (but still possessing interesting topography), that as seen from the earth's surface is very close to exhibiting the same angular size as that G2 star.  And to put some numbers to it, the sun is 400 times larger than the moon, but the sun is also 400 times (m/l) further away.

And as the moon's orbit tidally evolved (it receded from the earth) we infer in the past it was much closer and although eclipses would have been more frequent, they would have also been much less interesting as the apparent size of the moon would have blotted out the interesting sight of the suns prominences and corona.  Additionally, in the future, as the moon continues to recede eventually total eclipses will cease and they will all be annular, that is, the moon will never appear large enough to blot out the entire disk of the sun's surface.

Add all this up, a comfy planet, apparent size of sun and moon being 'close enough', orbital parameters of the moon (inclination, eccentricity, nodes, apsides, saros, etc) and we quite possibly enjoy . . .


[drum roll]


the BEST eclipses in the galaxy.


ENJOY !!!

How about reducing the inclination of the lunar orbit so he get more eclipses?

I'd assume our moon formed in or near earth's equatorial plane.  "Somehow" as it's orbit tidally evolved it's inclination to that plane 'relaxed' (my term) and the moon's orbit wound up more aligned to the ecliptic than it had been originally. 

(I think there is a reason involving tidal interactions with the sun perpendicular to it's (tiny) equatorial bulge why that happened)

So, despite the moons great distance from earth (it's really out there !) we are experiencing more eclipses than if the moon were in an equatorial orbit.

If the moon's orbit were to be made more aligned with the ecliptic, while we would get more eclipses, more of them would be in polar regions too.

I note 2018 has no total solar eclipses, but 3 'sucky' partials.  If the lunar orbit were more aligned (somehow) 2018 might then have one or two total eclipses, but there might also be 2 to 4 more partials.

And don't get me started on annular eclipses, what an effin waste of an eclipse.  I probably won't live long enough, but my farm will be in one later this century.  Won't have to go anywhere, but meh!  Who cares?  It's at sunrise too, and I'm not a morning person . . .