Re: Stonehenge Eclipse | Forum — The Modern Antiquarian

P

Pete G Sep 24, 2006 03:24:18

Replying to Rhiannon

Very good points and one's I will try to answer tomorrow.
We just had a lazy 2 hour sheet and forked lightening storm.

Time to test the new digi camera with a conventional film camera.
I Know the film camera won as it went seamlessly from one frame to the next (4 rolls of film to develope now, anyone know a good quick cheap lab [not T4] ?)
but the digital had a long time lag while writing to disk and I know I missed some goodies.
Here's a first try (hand held)
http://www.aveburylodge.co.uk/Photos/DigitalLightning.jpg
PeteG

P

Pete G Sep 24, 2006 03:46:59

Replying to Rhiannon

Crikey its tomorrow already! ;)

Partial lunar eclipses come and go but Total lunar eclipses come in clusters every 4 years.
The next lunar total is visible in march 2007.
During the last cluster I only got to see one of the four because of bad weather (but thats another neolithic weather/climate thread for another time)

The 47 years thing is that is the cycle it will take for the partial eclipse moon rise to appear in exactly the same place.
I think anyone over 25 could have witnessed a pattern in lunar eclipse types that could have been refined over two or three generation.
I know of three ways of predicting eclipses using the Aubrey holes (2) and the inner horseshoe shaped setting of 19 bluestones (1).

A shame the solar eclipse (ring of fire) was not visible here on friday.
http://www.spaceweather.com/eclipses/22sep06/Schoppmeyer1.jpg
PeteG

V

Vicster Sep 24, 2006 14:16:58

Replying to Rhiannon

Rhiannon wrote:

Pete - Your animation is a beautiful thing (I like the sheep too). But do you think this would ahve been a major thing to the builders of Stonehenge, if the period was 47 years, as i think you suggest? I had a discussion this evening about prehistoric lifetimes and was personally arguing for a decent lifespan (sparing unpleasant diseases etc) but would such a rarely -repeated spectacle attract so much attentionj so as to be noticeable and recognised as periodidcally astounding and worth looking out for next time? Yes I have been down the pub. Perhaps you're not saying it's a neolithic spectacle anyway, in which case I Take It All Back, and anyway I do not intend to be a stirrer.
Rhiannon

Hi Rhiannon

This was one of the questions I raised when we were at Callanish, with the 18.5 year moon cycle. If life expectancy was so low then there would've had to have been some who survived into their 50s at least for this to be of significance, wouldn't there? An individual would surely need to witness it at least 3 times, to see a pattern? Then factor in how long it must have taken to build these monuments.....we can only assume that the architects of some of these places didn't live to see their completion. Makes my head hurt just thinking about it (and I haven't even been down the pub!!)