{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1834",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 1834,
    "subject": "Eclipse prediction [Digest urth.v028.n051]",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1999-10-11T13:37:17+00:00",
    "last": "1999-10-11T13:37:17+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0028-0198@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "John Bishop",
        "address": "jbishop at blkbrd.zko.dec.com"
      },
      "date": "1999-10-11T13:37:17+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Re: Eclipse prediction [Digest urth.v028.n051]",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "_Sky_and_Telescope_ had a big write-up on the October 1998\n(I think it was '98, but it might have been '97) lunar\neclipse, as it was almost exactly a repeat of the one Columbus\nused.  It would have been the October 1998 (1997) issue.\n\nIt makes much more sense that you could use a lunar eclipse\nthis way, as they are far more commonly experienced (they are\nboth more common and more visible). In the Columbus case the\neclipse was almost perfect for aweing natives: the Moon rose\nfull and bright, then it dimmed and went dark and red for\na while, and finally got bright again.  They also last longer\nthan solar eclipses, but they do have much less of an impact:\nyou see the Moon get dark, but where you are nothing changes.\n\nI watched the repeat last year and it _was_ neat.\n\nAs the magazine noted, this only works when the audience is\nastronomically naive, as many early peoples knew of lunar eclipses\nand know that they are expected in a pattern which repeats\nevery 19 years.  It also depends on clear skies--the Connecticut\nYankee was lucky that it wasn't raining heavily (\"Untie me or\nI will turn off the sun!\"  \"What sun?\").\n\n\t-John Bishop"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}