1. Randy's Introduction.

Fred spoke briefly on the goings-on at the Canada Wide Science Fair, taking place here at St. John's. There are several students doing astronomical things, as well. Fred also invited us to the open house. Randy spoke a bit about the GA. He noted that our web site now has a link to the GA and encouraged people to register in order to attend.

Observations:

Ben Llewellyn: Venus phases, Jupiter and Saturn. Chris Stevenson:
Pictures of observing. Venus. Comet NEAT (15 exposures of 30 seconds).
Robert Babb: Jupiter.

Garry Dymond passed out a sheet on the transit of Venus, with times in NDT provided. We get to see the last half, basically. We have a 2.4-2.6% chance of clear skies in the morning according to a meteorologist Garry checked with.

2. Dr. Sharan: Synthesis of a Software for a Study of Solar and Lunar Eclipses since 4000 B.C.

Dr. Sharan presented a conference paper to the IEEE, upon which this talk is based. He is a member of the Faculty of Engineering here at MUN.

Dr. Sharan wished to investigate different historical events that were said to take place during eclipses. By using his software, you can tie down the date of these events much more firmly. He at first explained the Saros cycle, and how the nodes of the moon-earth orbital planes will rotate about the earth in about 18.6 years (the moon has an angle of obliquity of about 5 degrees). Because of this, and the fact there is a region and not a point near the nodes that the moon can produce an eclipse on the earth, we have eclipse seasons every 6 months or so.

There was some discussion of Hindu myth (demon eating the sun/moon), and other similar beliefs that are to be found around the world. Dr. Sharan also discussed the Julian and Gregorian calendars, with an emphasis on how the Julian day is used in the Fortran software.

We were taken on a brief guided tour of the software sources, and the equations used to produce the eclipse table.

Some events where eclipses were described and then verified by the software include:

From the Valmiki Ramayana: birth and coronation of Rama, March 4, 3347 and March 20, 3335, respectively.
War in the Mahabharata, in Bhisma Parva (Rahu attacks the sun), had a date of October 7, 2156. See more at: http://www.engr.mun.ca/~asharan/bihar/MBH2.htm .
Lydians and Medes: Lunar eclipse on May 13, solar on May 28, 585 BC.
Jesus: Josephus, Herod, lunar eclipse on March 12/13, 4 BC.

Question and answers.

Did Dr. Sharan find any other historical events he could date with eclipses? No, but his tables are in the library for anyone who wants to do additional research like that.

Ben Llewellyn regaled us with a tale of two Chinese court astronomers who were executed for failing to predict an eclipse.

Several people mentioned that various Mexican civilisations had advanced calendars.

There was some discussion of the Hindu calendar (a mixed lunar and sidereal calendar, I believe) and how it relates to the Gregorian calendar. Dr. Sharan also noted the Hindu calendar accounts for precession.

3. Coffee.

4. Transit of Venus.

Randy noted there is a link on our home page (or soon will be). Robert Babb was fortunate enough to visit Palomar and the Hale scope earlier in the month. He showed us pictures of his visit to the observatory. Randy and Garry also talked a bit about the GA, Star-B-Que and plans for the Venus Transit on June 8 at Signal Hill (in conjunction with Parks Canada).

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David Bourgeois

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