The Coming Total Lunar Eclipse on November 18, 1956

We call the attention of our readers to the occurrence of a total moon visible under very favorable conditions over most of the United permitting! The chief advantage of watching for possible lunar meteors during an eclipse of the moon is that simultaneous observations are then possible over almost half of the whole earth, whereas the earth-lit portions of-a near-new moon can be simultaneously observed under favorable conditions of sky-darkness and lunar altitude above the horizon from a far more limited geographical region. It a'1pears evident that lunar meteor searches are best carried out only while the eclipse is total and that during the 79 minutes of totality on November 18 the whole moon should be watched carefully and nearly continuous1y possible. As most of our readers know already, many lunar areas go through periodical changes of a rather curious sort. Thus dark areas on the floor of Eratosthenes darken as lunar noon approaches and fade out again under afternoon lighting, the white area around Linné diminishes in size toward its lunar noon and then enlarges again, and the dark bands on the east inner wall of Aristarchus darken more or less progressively from sunrise until sunset shadow covers them. However, more observations are needed to distinguish between competing theories of the nature of these areas.