August 16, 2008 - Purnima - Celebrating the appearance of Lord Balarama - Partial Lunar Eclipse

Partial Lunar Eclipse - August 16, 2008

On August 16th the moon will wax full, and the devotees will honor the appearance day of Lord Balarama. Lord Krishna's appearance day, Janmastami, is just around the corner, August 24th. There is generally much excitement and activity at this time of year, preparing for festitivites celebrating these two events.

This year August 16th features another event, a partial lunar eclipse, visible across much of the world, excepting North America, and lasting 3 hrs 8 minutes, with the greatest eclipse at 21:10:09 UT.

For those who are interested in the astrological implications, Sun is leaving Cancer and entering Leo (will be at 0°22'30" in the 5th sign at time of eclipse), and Moon is crossing from Capricorn into Aquarius, moving at the rate of 31.875' per hour over the 24 hour period beginning from 16 August (12:00am GMT) through 17 August (12:00am GMT), so at the time of eclipse—if the ephemeris data is accurate and my calculations are not buggy—the Moon ought to be just around 0°23'18" in the 11th sign, Aquarius. For the other planets: Mars in the 6th sign (Virgo), Mercury in the 5th (Leo), Jupiter in the 9th (Sagittarius) and still retrograde throughout August, Venus and Saturn in the 5th (Leo), and Rahu in the 10th (Capricorn).

NOTE: Light On Astrology fixes the time of eclipse at 9:17pm GMT (UT), seven minutes later than given at the NASA website.

I'm no astrologer, so I have no idea what kinds of happenings could be predicted to play out on the cosmic stage in association with this eclipse, but if anyone wants to take a stab at it, you're welcome to try out our new commenting feature.

Look to the inserted panel for times.

By the way, some Fire Fox users who try to visit the Light On Astrology website might end up seeing a Google alert page, warning that this is a "Reported Attack Site". Click for further information, and then decide whether you can safely visit. It seems there was a problem with some malware hosted on a Russian server somehow being downloaded via this website, but the report does say that there has been no malware or virus activity for the last 90 days. You can always chant Hare Krishna and dare to live a little!