Introduction
Many lunar eclipse primary contact timings were reported by Willard J. Fisher in 1880 copied from a manuscript by Julius F J Schmidt, Beobachtungen der Mondfinsternisse 1842-1879. These observations have never been analysed according to (Joseph Ashbrook , 1997). These lunar eclipse primary umbral contacts and crater timings have now been analysed and compared with the predictions made for each eclipse. A computer program was prepared by the author to give predicted penumbral and umbral contact times, associated data for each circumstance together with line illustrations of each eclipse.
The penumbral and umbral primary contact times are compared with the predicted times and with those from the author's Improved Lunar Eclipse Ephemeris (Soulsby, 1990) using an observed oblateness value of 1/102 (Meeus, 1991) for the umbra and for the penumbra.
The reduction of numerous primary contact and crater timings for each eclipse are compared with predictions for selected lunar features to assess Schmidt's observations.
Observed Times
The primary contact times reported by Schmidt were published in Solar Time, the convention adopted in the 19 th century, and these have been changed to Universal Time (UT) by adding 12 hours from noon with a further correction for the time difference between the true longitude of the observing location and the nominal time zone, as shown in Table 1. A further correction is also applied at the time of mid-eclipse, known as the equation of time, due to the eccentricity of the earth's orbit and to a lesser amount, the perturbations by the moon and planets (Meeus, 1991). These are listed in Table 2.
Penumbral contact times
Schmidt made several unique timings of the moon entering and leaving the penumbra, the less dense outer shadow cast by the earth onto the moon during a lunar eclipse. These timings, each corrected from Solar Time to UT, are considered in Table 3 and compared with the computed predictions.
Penumbral Variations
There is a general consistency in the change in contact timings of 1h 20m later for PC1 and approximately 1h 30m earlier for PC2. These are much larger variations than predicted but are not due to a larger value of oblateness for the penumbra.
Primary contact timings
Schmidt observed 28 lunar eclipses in all and made a very large number of observations of primary contacts of the moon with the dense umbral shadow cast by the earth. These included many eclipses either partial with first and fourth contact, or total eclipses with first, second, third and fourth contacts. These timings are considered in Table 4 where each has been corrected to UT and compared with the computed predictions.
Umbral Variations
The corrected primary contact times of the moon with the umbra give some fairly wide departures from the predictions. However, complete reduction of the hundreds of crater timings made by Schmidt from most eclipses will test the validity of these derived corrections. A summary of these crater timing reductions are listed in the Appendix.
References
Fisher, W.J., from a manuscript by Julius F J Schmidt, Beobachtungen der Mondfinsternisse 1842-1879. (1880)
Ashbrook, J., Sky & Telescope, 53 (3), March (1997)
Soulsby, B. W., Journal of the British Astronomical Association, 100 (6), 297 (1990)
Meeus, J., Astronomical Algorithms, William-Bell, Inc (1991)
