From SOLARECLIPSES-owner@AULA.COM Sun Jan 14 00:48:16 2001
From: "janita hill" <janitah@senet.com.au>
To: <SOLARECLIPSES@AULA.COM>
Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 16:00:44 +1030
Subject: [SE] SELENELION

Ha! One for all those wordsmiths out there:
(Taken from my local Society chat line)
cheers, Janita Hill

This note from Duncan Steel about the lunar eclipse
& sun sighting on jan 10, contains a comment by
his friend Graham Waddington on the historical
aspects of this type of observation. (Dr. Tony Beresford)
=======================================
I am told that seeing the Sun plus eclipsed Moon in the sky is
called a selenelion...  The following is from my informant.
GW has a DPhil in astrophysics but works in other things.
Duncan
===============================================
>From Graeme Waddington (Oxford, UK):
>I compiled a list of observations of these selenelions.  The best one was
>from France at the
>end of the 19th century (or beginning of the 20th) where the eclipsed moon
>was seen above the horizon with the sun still visible when the moon was
>something like 98% eclipsed.   The most documented one was due to Payen in
>1668  -  I have a microfilm of the Bodlean's copy of his report.  Seem to
>recall that Hevelius saw one from Danzig and that Kepler tried to see one
>when he was in Linz but failed.
>I am told that seeing the Sun plus eclipsed Moon in the sky is
>called a selenelion.

Does the pronunciation of that word resemble the name of a
certain well-known Canadian singer?
And can it be used legitimately in a game of Scrabble?
(Fraser Farrell)