They say this is a tetrad. I understand a tetrad to be four eclipses in a row of which they are total. The one in April is not total.

If, as some suggest, it is "a sign from God", then wouldn't God be right on the mark? Wouldn't He make these eclipses perfectly centered? If this is really a sign from God, did He miss the target?

This April one is not centered and is not total. Not for anyone on the globe. It's not visible in Jerusalem, and only a portion of it will be visible on the east coast.

http://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/in/usa/virginia-beach

The tetrads can be predicted years, even centuries, in advance. They could predict them even in centuries past.
Even in ancient times individuals realized that eclipses happened at certain intervals. These knowledgeable individuals used these patterns of eclipses to impress or threaten the commoners and thus became the priests or authorities of the culture.

Even Christopher Columbus used this knowledge --
A total lunar eclipse occurred on March 1, 1504 (visible on the evening of February 29 in the Americas).
Columbus' men had been mistreating the natives and the natives were retaliating by refusing to give them food or provisions.
Columbus told the natives his god would provide a clear sign of his displeasure of their actions by making the rising full Moon appear "inflamed with wrath".
Just as he said, that evening a reddish moon eclipse sent the natives howling, bringing provisions, and begging for Columbus to ask his god to withdraw his wrath.


One can chart those eclipses --
and use them to push an agenda, implying it is God's sign to get the people to think a certain way.

In this present case the eclipses are being used to push the dispensationalist/futurist interpretation of prophecy.

Something will probably happen over in Israel (it's not hard to plan something when one knows the eclipses are coming) and this will be further used to push the dispensationalist/futurist interpretation of prophecy.

The question --
Are we going to abandon the historicist interpretation and accept the popular interpretations?

I guess what I'm saying, that even if someone did artificially correlate an event, it wouldn't mean anything since it's not even a tetrad.

However, I am getting the feeling that this is kind of like telling people that the beginning of the 21st century is not in 2000 but in 2001. Don't worry about the details or you'd miss the party.

Well isn't this strange. I see timeanddate.com has changed it from "partial eclipse" to "total eclipse". (In fact, several things have been changed) And the animations, instead of missing totality, it looks like it just grazes the edge. I find this strange indeed. Were they wrong before? Did someone cause/coerce them to change their web page? Can anything be trusted with them, now? Or did the positions of the Earth or Moon change in their line-up relation to the Sun?

You can search and still find references to it being a partial eclipse. But it almost sounds like websites are changing so they "won't miss the party".

One way to find out is to observe it. Can people make a point to look and see if it at least appears total or if still an edge is showing?

Eclipse times in Universal Time.

Partial umbral eclipse begins: 10:16 Universal Time (UT)
Total eclipse begins: 11:58 UT
Greatest eclipse: 12:00 UT
Total eclipse ends: 12:03 UT
Partial umbral eclipse ends: 13:45 UT


According to one reference:

"April 4 lunar eclipse can be regarded as a very shallow total lunar eclipse or a very deep partial lunar eclipse. The eclipse master, Fred Espenak, assures us that it’s actually a total eclipse of very short duration, (less then five minutes) despite some sites calling it a partial eclipse."

Yes, timeanddate is now saying that. But before, their animation showed a sliver of the moon not covered. Now it does. And they had labeled it as "partial" and said nothing about a short duration. Doesn't that seem odd for anyone to ever have said it was only "partial" because it was a short duration? To me, if at any point it reaches totality, it is a total eclipse regardless of time. I cannot believe someone would say it was "partial" because it was only 5 minutes, or 10 minutes, or 2 hours. I think someone is trying to pull something. They were either wrong before or wrong now.

I took a series of photos as the moon eclipsed. It managed to get to a thin sliver before disappearing below the horizon. The shadowed part did not appear red, but just disappeared in the brightening sky.

Questions:

Did anyone anywhere see a total eclipse?

Did the eclipse appear red to anyone?

Fully visible from Southern cailf. Tetrad info

Yes, the animation had been changed as I was referring to. A few weeks ago, it wasn't that way for California, Australia, or other places I checked.

But the questions are:

Did anyone anywhere see a total eclipse?

Did the eclipse appear red to anyone?

That is, did YOU see the total eclipse in Southern California or anywhere else?

Hmmmm....

Notice in the time and date for the April eclipse, and under the Image/Animation section. I always have trouble with little keyhole colors and matching them. So I count them. So while they may have changed some things, the number of shadings don't match. It's like they tried to overlap some....


Regarding this September eclipse, isn't it supposed to fall on a Jewish feast day?
Hmmmm.....