Astronomy question

Dunno abot "the darkest day in recorded astronomical history" ... dunno as such a thing exists. Mebbe, but to the best of my recollection, I've not heard of it - which proves conclsively only that I've not heard of it that I remember. A solar eclipse can occur on any day of the calendar, and the area of totality may fall anywhere on the planet, with the middle lattitudes heavily favored. Consult an emphemeris.

BTW, look up an Isaac Asimov short story, Nightfall - later expanded into a novel, the riginal short story sets out and handles a similar concept pretty well.

As timberland said, it is possible to have a solar eclipse on the soltace, the problem is when this is going to take place. It is very easy to calculate when and where each solar eclipse will take place.

Specifying a solar eclipse on a certain date in a certain location is going to nail down a certain year... I checked on the NASA table, and I didn't find one that will happen in the next 100 years. I did find an eclipse that happened on Dec 21 in 1805, but it was only visible in the Southern hemisphere.

You can look for yourself on the NASA calculated table of Solar Eclipses.

Other scientific ways to make the darkest day for your film are a volcanic eruption (I think this is the real cause of the darkest day in history) or giant sunspots (not really realistic, but probably acceptable for a science fiction story). The side effects of these ideas might be too great for your story though.

good luck.




Good luck.

A quick guess--I have heard it said that every place on the earth, will see the umbra of a solar eclipse about every four to five hundred years. Using the upper value, and a single day of the year. I would guess that the odds were on the order of the product. That is 500 times 360 or about every 200,000 years.

If I was a betting man, I would buy a Irish Solstice solar eclipse next year before a daily lottery ticket, the odds are better by a factor of five.

Rap

Raprap,

Tell me for which year you would like a Irish Solstice solar eclipse lottery ticket. You can name the odds and I will sell you that ticket (almost certainly).

Never buy a $1 lottery until the payoff is greater than 4 mil. You're just paying into the revenue enhancement.

Granted, if I can pick the year, with enough time I should be able to predict a certaintyof an Irish Solstice Solar Eclipse, but I'm not immortal and 200,000 years is a long time. Not as long as waiting for Yellowstone to explode, but a long time in comparison to four score and ten.

Rap

Yes. But a solar eclipse would only darken Ireland for an hour or two- I suppose it could make it the darkest day on record in Ireland. What, do the vampires have a party that day?

Try Irish whisky- that'll turn out the lights ALL day.

Good luck with your film.

Solstice Query
Wow thanks guys for all the replies! It's given me food for thought. I was thinking of setting the entire movie in an alternate world present, which would mean that the world is the exact same, except there is a chance of an eclipse occuring on the day of the winter solstice. I was thinking that the eclipse would occur maybe a half hour before sunset, so it would be the darkest day in the world if only for the fact that there would be less light on this day than any other time.
Thanks for all the replies people. Lets get this things going. Let's spitball and I'll give you all a story credit in the screenplay!!!

Always willin' to try a drop of the Irish, Equus, but thats "Whiskey", not whisky - without the "E", its mere scotch. :wink:




Not that there's anything wrong with scotch - in fact, in a pinch, if there's no Dew, Pinch'll do just fine, thank you ... wouldn't grouse about Grouse, either

Hi joker: Darkest day in Irish history, perhaps, but the North and South pole have no Sun light at all for almost 3 months before and after every winter solstice, which occurs about June 21 for the South pole. Neil