DOS program to show lunar eclipse areas

Several years ago, I wrote a small DOS program to show the parts of the world that could view lunar eclipses. I then forgot about it until recently. It produces charts such as this one. You can click here to download it (about 52 KBytes). (There are also some more images for lunar eclipses for the next few years at this site.)

If you unZIP this program and run LUNECLIP, you will see a lunar eclipse of 1995 (probably when I wrote the program). Hit '+', and the next eclipse will be shown. Hit '-', and the previous eclipse will be shown. Hit '?', and a help screen will be shown.

The colors are used to indicate which phases are visible. In the example chart showing the 9 January 2001 total eclipse, purple indicates areas where only the penumbral phase will be visible. For example, in Cuba, the moon will rise while in the penumbra, and exit shortly thereafter. In the area between Australia and New Zealand, the moon will enter the penumbra, then set shortly thereafter. Nobody will get a chance to see the umbral (or total) stages. People in these areas will basically not see anything very interesting.

Red indicates areas where at least some of the umbral stage can be seen. For example, in New York City, the moon will rise while in the umbra. But it will be leaving the umbra, then the penumbra, and the eclipse will be over.

Meanwhile, in eastern Australia, the moon will enter the penumbra, then the umbra. Then, just as the event is getting interesting, the moon will set.

Next are three light blue bands where more of the event can be seen, from "see part of the total phase", to "see part of one umbral phase and the entire total phase", to "see part of one penumbral phase, plus the entire umbral and total phases."

Finally, the white-shaded areas indicate regions where the entire event is visible.

I created the above image by running LUNECLIP, and hitting '+' until the 9 January 2001 eclipse was shown. Then I hit 'Print Screen', which copies the screen to the Windows clipboard. I then ran PaintShop Pro and clicked "Edit... Paste... As New Image".