66 
THE GUIDE TO NATURE 
contact occurs at 4:14 Eastern time. 
The middle of the eclipse occurs in po- 
sition 2 at 5 :54. This is the maximum 
eclipse. A little of the southern portion 
of the moon is still outside of the 
shadow. The last contact with the 
shadow occurs at position 3 at 7 :34- 
The western side of the moon is the 
last to emerge from the shadow. 
The entire moon will be distinctly 
There will be no eclipse of the moon 
next year. 
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The Planets. 
There are no planets visible to the 
naked eye in the early evening. Some 
of the planets may be seen under un- 
favorable conditions before sunrise in 
the east. On October 25 Venus passes 
Jupiter. At this time the two brilliant 
visible even when deeply immersed in 
the shadow. The earth’s atmosphere 
bends a considerable portion of sun- 
light into what would otherwise be a 
black shadow. This light, which is of 
a reddish tinge, illuminates the moon. 
The beginning of the eclipse will 
not be visible in the United States, as 
the moon has not risen when the eclipse 
begins. The time of moonrise varies 
with the position of the observer and 
the kind of time he uses. In the posi- 
tion of Philadelphia (five hours west 
longitude 40° north latitude) the moon 
rises at 5:17 P. M. The time at other 
places will not differ greatly from this. 
Only those on the eastern coast will see 
the maximum eclipse. Those farther 
west using Central time will find that 
the moon has risen from the middle of 
the eclipse and those still further west 
will see no eclipse at all, as the moon 
will not have risen until the eclipse is 
over. This will be true west of Denver. 
planets will be quite close together. 
Saturn is near by and Mars also is near. 
These four planets, all of the planets 
visible to the naked eye, except Mer- 
cury, which is seldom visible, are then 
in the same constellation, Virgo. Un- 
fortunately this interesting and un- 
usual clustering of the planets is visible 
only in the morning twilight. The po- 
sitions of the planets are shown in Fig- 
ure 3. 
Mercury may be seen very low in the 
southwest in the early evening twilight 
for a few evenings about October 7. 
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Uranus. 
Until comparatively recent times the 
above mentioned five planets were the 
only ones known. They are the only 
ones plainly visible to the naked eye. 
These with the sun and moon made up 
seven moving bodies. One day of the 
week was dedicated to each, Sunday 
for the sun, Saturday for Saturn, etc. 
