NavList:

Frank

I just looked at your question again.  I didn’t answer the start and finish times of a bite out the Sun.  Your programming wizards will no doubt come up with sliding Venn diagrams of Sun and Moon.  However, there is a spread sheet plus graphical solution now I’ve rediscovered your USNO Clone.  See attached.  So far, it’s incomplete.  As a prompt we’re looking for when there’s a 32’ difference between the height and azimuth of the Sun’s and Moon’s centres, but then you have to start wiggling discs around.  The amazing thing for how long there’s a bite out of the Moon.  The casual observer wouldn’t notice it, but through heavily smoked glass you’d see it.  This bears out my memories of 26Feb79.  Wikipedia suggests that as the eclipse was travelling east and we were travelling west the eclipse should have passed us very quickly, but I was pretty sure, as we were flying west at roughly the same speed as the Sun & Moon, that I’d take at least two sights a minimum of 30 minutes apart with a bite out of the Sun while barely needing to adjust the sextant settings. DaveP