ICARUS 4, 409-414 (1965)

Lunar Eclipses and the Forecasting of Solar Minima

BARBARA B E L L AND J O H N G. W O L B A C H
Harvard College Observatory, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Communicated by G. de Vaucouleurs

Received April 20, 1965

It is shown that an equation, derived by Danjon from ~ study of the variation in

brightness of the eclipsed Moon with phase of the sunspot cycle, predicts dates in
good agreement with observed sunspot minima in 1923, 1933, 1944, 1954, and 1964,
and for all minima back to 1823. Even better agreement is obtained by the addition
of 0.4 yr to the constant term of Danjon's equation, from which it is inferred that the
discontinuity in eclip~ brightness occurs on the average 4-5 months before sunspot
minimum. Predictions of future minima are given, the next one being 1974. 9 +- 0.3.

INTRODUCTION among the brightest, eclipses immediately

Some time ago D a n j o n (1920a, b) pre- after minimum the darkest. De Vaucouleurs
sented evidence that the length of the sun- (1944a,b; 1954) confirmed this phenomenon
spot cycle, measured from minimum to by an independent study of 47 lunar eclipses
minimum, varied systematically with a from 1894 to 1943 and several additional
period of 136 years. This paper reports the eclipses to 1953.
results we obtained from applying Danjon's Having established this relationship,
formula, which appears to have received D a n j o n (1920b) used the records of the
little attention from solar astronomers, to brightness of earlier eclipses to fix the dates
the prediction of sunspot minima in the of solar minima from the year 1583 to 1912.
period from 1920 to the present. He derived the preliminary expression
D a n j o n derived his equation from a Date of min = t = 1584.8 + 10.87 E, (1)
study of the brightness of the eclipsed
Moon as a function of phase of the sunspot where E is the number of the minimum,
cycle. He made an exhaustive study of the beginning with E = 0 in 1583. This equa-
records of lunar eclipses dating back to the tion predicted the dates of discontinuity in
16th century and compiled a catalog of 150 eclipse brightness with an average error of
eclipses, with useful descriptive information 1 year; 57% of the errors exceeded 1 year.
on their brightness. In spite of the absence He noted a nonrandom tendency in the
of photometric measures, he was able to errors and found that by adding a periodic
classify the brightness of these lunar correction term
eclipses on a five-step scale. After classify- = 1.7 sin 2~[(t -- 1608)/136], (2)
ing 70 eclipses, occurring between 1823 and
1920, Danjon (1920a) found t h a t the he could reduce the average error to 0.4
brightness of the eclipsed Moon depends years and the frequency of errors greater
on the phase of the sunspot cycle. The than 1 year to 10%.
brightness increases throughout the cycle,
at first rapidly and then more slowly. At APPLICATION OF DANJON'S EQUATION
minimum he found an abrupt discontinu- The dates of minima predicted by Dan-
ity, eclipses shortly before minimum being jon's equation,
409
410 B. BELL AND J. G. WOLBACH

M i n = 1584.8 + 10.87 E + A, (3) i m a i n 1923, 1933, 1944, a n d 1954, w i t h n o

e r r o r s g r e a t e r t h a n 0.4 y e a r s . I n d e e d , f r o m
are shown in Table I, which also gives the
dates of minima derived from sunspot 1823 o n w a r d D a n j o n ' s e p o c h s a r e i n r e -
records (Waldmeier, 1955). Comparison markably good agreement with observed
s h o w s t h a t E q . (3) g i v e s d a t e s i n g o o d sunspot minima.
agreement with the actually observed min- However the residuals, 0- C:, the dif-

TABLE I
COMPARISON OF OBSERVED AND PREDICTED DATES OF M I N I M U M

Year of minimum
Sunspots, More active hemisphere
Danjon Cycle Waldmeier From Residual
epoch6 no. (1955) Eq. (3) 0 -- Cs A Spots Great storms

1
-- -- 1572.2 --
0 D -- 1583.3 -- +1.5
1 -- 1594.8 -- +0.9
2 D 1610.8 1606.3 .1.4.5 +0.2
3 D 1619.0 1618.1 .1.0.9 --0.7
4 1634.0 1629.7 .1.4.3 --1.4
5 1645.0 1640.9 .1.4.1 -1.7
6 1655.0 1651.6 ,1,3.4 -1.6
7 1666.0 1662. O .1.4.0 --1.1
8 D -- 1672.1 -- --0.3 Sb _--
9 1679.5 1682.1 -2.6 t0.5 Sb __
10 1689.5 1692.2 -2.7 -t-1.2 Sb ._
11 D 1698.0 1702.8 -4.8 -4-1.6 Sb __
12 D 1712.0 1713.5 --1.5 -4-1.7
13 D 1723.5 1724.8 -1.3 +1.3
14 D 1734.0 1736.5 -2.5 +0.5
15 D 1745.0 1748.1 -3.1 -0.3
16 D 1755.2 1759.8 -4.6 -1.1
1
17 1766.5 1771.2 --4.7 -1.6
2
18 D 1775.5 1782.2 --6.7 -1.7
3
19 1784.7 1792.7 -- 8.0 -1.4
4
20 1798.3 1803.0 --4.7 -0.8
5
21 D 1810.6 1812.9 --2.3 -4-0.1
6
22 D 1823.3 1823.0 .1.0.3 +O.9
7
23 D 1833.9 1833.3 ,1,0.6 .1.1.5
8 N
24 D 1843.5 1844.0 --0.5 +1.7
9 N N
25 D 1856.0 1855.1 ,1,0.9 .1.1.5 S S
10
26 D 1867.2 1866.4 t0.8 ,1,1.0
11 S S
27 D 1878.9 1878.1 +0.8 +0.2 S S
12
28 D 1889.6 1889.9 --0.3 -0.7
13 S S
29 D 1901.7 1901.4 t0.3 -1.4
14 N? S
30 D 1913.6 1912.6 +1.0 -1.7
15 N N?
31 1923.6 1923.4 tO. 2 -1.6
16 N N
32 1933.8 1933.7 t0.1 -1.1
17 N N
33 1944.3 1943.9 .1.0.4 -0.4
18 N N
34 1954.3 1953.9 t0.4 +0.5 N N
19
35 1964.5 Est 1964.0 .1.0.5 E s t +1.2
2O N?
36 -- 1974.5 -- +1.6 N? --
21
37 -- 1985.3 -- +1.7 S? --
22
38 -- 1996.6 -- --}-1.3

6 D , eclipse-observation epochs used by Danjon (1920b) in derivation of Eq. (3).

b See Maunder (1922); S, south; N, north.
 FORECASTING SOLAR MINIMA 411

ferences between the dates of minima given I and with our hypothesis that the spot
by Waldmeierand by Eq. (3), are positive minimum tends to occur a few months later
with but two exceptions. This suggests that than the discontinuity in eclipse brightness.
sunspot minimum may lag a few months The eclipses of 1964 June 24 and December
behind the discontinuity in eclipse bright- 19 were also relatively dark (Sky and Tele-
ness. The average value of the residuals is scope, 1965), in accord with Danjon's
+0.39 or about 5 months. Thus for fore- relation.
casting sunspot minima we propose to add Equation (4) indicates that the minimum
0.4 to the first term of Danjon's equation, after sunspot Cycle 20 should occur at
whence 1974.9 0.3.
The upper section of Table I shows that
Spot rain = 1585.2 -t- 10.87 E + A. (4)
prior to 1823 Danjon's epochs often dis-
Table II gives the dates of sunspot mini- agree by as much as several years with
mum predicted by Eq. (4) and the resulting those derived from Wolf sunspot numbers.
residuals, 0 -- C4. For the years before 1750 we matched
dates to minimize the residuals; for later
TABLE II years we simply listed the dates, working
DATES OF SUNSPOT MINIMUM
backwards from 1823 (in spite of the fact
PREDICTED BY EQ. (4)
that 1784.7 and 1782.2 would seem to refer
Sunspot to the same minimum). The epochs at
Danjon minimum Residual
epoch Eq. (4) 0 --C4 which Danjon found observational evi-
dence for a discontinuity in eclipse bright-
22 1823.4 -- 0.1 ness are marked "D" in column 1 of
23 1833.7 +0.2
Table I. These early epochs, which he
24 1844.4 -- 0 . 9
25 1855.5 +0.5
used (along with post-1823 epochs) in the
26 1866.8 +0.4
derivation of Eq. (3), have an average
27 1878.5 +0.4 residual of 3.5 years, only slightly less
28 1890.3 - O. 7 than the value of 4.3 years for the non-D
29 1901.8 -0.1 epochs. Commenting on these discrepancies,
30 1913.0 +0.6 Danjon (1920b) himself pointed out that
31 1923.8 --0.2 the early sunspot numbers were derived
32 1934.1 --0.3 from often fragmentary data and might
33 1944.3 0.0 possibly contain substantial errors; in par-
34 1954.3 0.0
ticular he argued that the discovery of
35 1964.4 +0.1 Est
36 1974.9
sunspots in 1611 was not likely to have
37 1985.7 occured in a period of minimal solar ac-
38 1997.0 tivity. In view of the large discrepancies
39 2008.6 a review of early sunspot data would seem
40 2020.0 worthwhile.
Equation (3) indicates an average length
Although the exact date of the current of 10.87 years for the solar cycle, in con-
sunspot minimum cannot yet be deter- trast to the generally quoted value of 11.1
mined, we infer from the 2800 Mc/sec years. However the evidence for a cycle
intensity measurements made at Ottawa averaging 11.1 years comes mainly from
(National Bureau of Standards, 1965) that the early records of spot numbers: 19
minimum may have occurred about 1964.5, cycles from 1611 to 1823, average 11.2
a date in excellent agreement with that of years; the 12 cycles from 1823 to 1954,
1964.4 given by Eq. (4). The lunar eclipse with observed minima agreeing closely
of 1963 December 30 was already a very with Danjon's epochs, average 10.9 years.
dark one (Sky and Telescope, 1965), as If even the early spot cycles consistently
was that of 1954 January 19 (Link, 1962), averaged 11.2 years, the error tabulated in
in a~eement with the dates given in Table the fifth column of Table I should increase
412 B. BELL AND J. G. WOLBACH
on the average 2 years per century. We see
no evidence of any secular change in the
error.
The periodic h term in Danjon's equation
predicts a series of shorter than average
cycles alternating with a series of long
cycles, ranging in length from 10.0 to 11.8
years. Figure 1 shows the length of the
S fO 12 14 I~ , I@
I ' I I ' I ' / ' I
I I I I I I
Fro. 1. Predicted (smooth curve) and observed
(dots) length of sunspot cycle in years plotted
against Zurich cycle number.
predicted and observed sunspot cycles
plotted against Zurich cycle number. The
average deviation from the predicted length
of the cycle is 0.5 years, slightly larger
than the 0.3 years average error in the
date of minimum given by Eq. (4) (Table
II). Cycle 21 should be the first of a series
of 11-12 year cycles.
No comparably accurate means of pre-
dicting dates of sunspot maxima is known.
The brightness of the eclipsed Moon shows
no distinctive feature to mark sunspot
maximum. However if we use Danjon's
equation, with the addition of a displace-
ment factor selected to minimize the errors,
4.22 for Eq. (4) or 4.65 for Eq. (3), we
obtain an average difference of 0.8 years
between observed and predicted dates of
maximum between 1823 and 1965. The
errors show no systematic trend over these
142 years. This lack of trend and the larger
average error would suggest that dates of
sunspot maximum are inherently less pre-
dictable, at least by purely mathematical
means, than dates of minimum. If we pre-
dict each spot maximum simply by adding
the average time of rise to the observed
date of the preceding minimum, the av-
erage error is 0.75 years. Danjon's equa-
tion, while not improving on the accuracy,
does offer a means for predicting approxi-
mate dates of sunspot maxima further in
advance than is generally attempted.
We investigated the relation of length of
sunspot cycle to the spot number a t maxi-
mum and to the time of rise to maximum.
Waldmeier (1935) has.shown that~.4he lat-
ter two parameters are related. We find no
relation between rise-time and length of
cycle. While there is some sug~eshon
fie "T. Of a
~ 0 CYCLE
/ ' negative correlation between height of
maximum and length of cycle, the relation
appears to be without statistical signifi-
cance or forecasting value.
A number of writers have found evidence
in the Wolf numbers for an 80-year period
in the height of maxima, based on high
maxima in the late 18th centmT and mid-
19th and 20th centuries. However the 18th
I century spot minima differ by as much as
half a cycle from Danjon's eclipse-derived
minima, casting some doubt on the accu-
racy of the early spot numbers and any
period derived from them. If only post-
1823 spot numbers can be considered relia-
ble, we lack a sufficient span of data to
determine whether there is any 136-year
period in the height of spot maxima.
:NoRTH-SouTH ASYMMETRY
Another possible long cycle in solar ac-
tivity appears in the unequal activity of
the northern and southern solar hemi-
spheres (Bell, 1962; Wolbach, 1962)., Col-
umns 8 and 9 of Table I show which was
the more active hemisphere for each cycle
since 1833 and indicate that the direction
of the asymmetry h a s remained constant
over several cycles (except for short-period
fluctuations), both in the degree of spot-
redness and in the production of great
geomagnetic storms. In our 1962 papers
we concluded that if this north-south
asymmetry had any periodicity, the length
of the cycle was greater than 80 years and
was not defined by the data availgble to us.
Here we would postulate an asymmetry
cycle of 136 years and consider tts:rd!a.tion
to h. After Zurich Cycle 10 t h e ~0t~thern
solar hemisphere replaced the northern as
the more active. At this time A had passed
its maximum and a series of longer-than-
average cycles was beginning. Witch ~Cycle
15 the northern hemisphere again became
 FORECASTING SOLAR MINIMA
the more active, at the end of the series of
long cycles with a at a minimum. If this
relation is more than coincidental, we might
expect the present northern predominance
to end with the minimum of 1985 after
Cycle 21. However we must caution against
taking this prediction too seriously. Earlier
data, though fragmentary seem clearly to
indicate a period of southern predominance
between 1670 and 1713, when a was in-
creasing. Solar activity was extremely low
throughout the last half of the 17th cen-
tury, but the few spots that were observed
occurred in the southern hemisphere
(Maunder, 1922). Any connection between
the long-term north-south asymmetry in
solar activity and Dan]on's 136-year period
in cycle length thus appears doubtful.
DISCUSSION
We shall now consider briefly the most
probable causes of the dependence of the
brightness of the eclipsed Moon on phase
of the solar cycle. The visibility of the
eclipsed Moon is generallyattributed to the
reflection of sunlight that has been re-
fracted"into the umbra by the Earth's
outer atmosphere. But from detailed cal-
culations Link concluded that the amount
of sunlight refracted was not sufficient to
account for the entire brightness of the
brighter eclipses. Link (1946, 1962) sug-
gested that luminescence of lunar surface
materials struck by solar X-rays or cor-
pusculai-: radiation probably contributed to
the brightness of the eclipsed Moon, and
was the main factor in the dependence on
phase of t h e solar cycle. He pointed out
that the solar corona would be less eclipsed
than the photosphere, as seen from the
3ioon, so that more X-rays than photo-
spheric light might reach the eclipsed Moon.
Menzel (private communication) directed
our attention to the value of spectral
observations of the eclipsed Moon for
determining the relative contributions of
refracted sunlight and luminescence. The
spectrum of refracted light, reflected by the
Moon,: should show Fraunhofer lines typi-
cal of reflected and scattered sunlight. By
contrast, no Fraunhofer lines should appear
in that portion of the light produced by
luminescence. This latter component should
413
be most readily observed in the brighter
eclipses late in the sunspot cycle.
Tentatively accepting Link's hypothesis,
we suggest that the precise form of the
dependence of brightness on the phase of
the solar cycle is the most useful clue at
present for choosing between X-ray and
corpuscular radiation as the cause of lumi-
nescence by the eclipsed Moon. There is no
evidence that the output of solar X-rays
parallels the form of Danjon's eclipse curve.
All data from radio astronomy, the iono-
sphere, and coronal emission lines indicate
that the degree of coronal excitation closely
parallels the curve of sunspot numbers.
There is no evidence for any discontinuity
at minimum.
On the other hand, Newton and Milsom
(1954) showed that the frequency of non-
SC geomagnetic storms had its maximum
1-4 years after sunspot maximum, in con-
trast to great SC storms whose frequency
parallels the sunspot curve. Geomagnetic
storms of the non-SC type tend to recur
with a period of 27 days and are generally
ascribed to long-continuing corpuscular
streams.
Figure 2 shows the average sunspot curve
for Cycles 13-16 (1889-1933) and 17-19
(1933-1964), and the average values of the
indices of geomagnetic activity, C~ for the
former, and K~ and Ap for the latter period.
From Fig. 2 we see that the average level
of geomagnetic activity is greatest 3 years
after maximum sunspot activity, a conse-
quence of the numerous non-SC storms at
this stage of the cycle. Although the curve
of magnetic activity turns down a year or
two before minimum, it nevertheless resem-
bles that of the brightness of the eclipsed
Moon (see Link, 1962, p. 218) much more
closely than does the sunspot curve. This
fact suggests to us that solar corpuscular
radiation is the major cause of lumines-
cence of the lunar surface.
Observations from Mariner II (Snyder,
Neugebauer, and Rao, 1963) have pro-
vided evidence that a close correlation
exists between the daily value of the Kp
index and the velocity of the solar wind
plasma in space. Perhaps shortly before
solar minimum the average velocity of the
solar wind drops below the critical value
414 B. BELL AND J. G. WOLBACH

required to excite lunar luminescence. The
validity of this hypothesis remains to be
tested by future satellite observations of
the solar wind, laboratory experiments on
2 4.
I i
Gi
0.7
O.E
0.~
? 2
I
4
I '
2C
Ap
16
12
8 80
I , I ,
FIG. 2. Average values of the annual sunspot
number, R (right scale), and the indices of geo-
magnetic activity, C~, Kp and Ap (left scales)
plotted against year in the sunspot cycle, with
minimum at year zero: Top, average of Cycles
13-16, 1889-1933; Bottom, average of Cycles 17-
19, 1933-1964.
luminescence under impact from proton
streams of appropriate velocity, and spec-
tral observations of the light of the eclipsed
Moon.
Meanwhile we suggest that because of its
excellent agreement with observed minima
since 1823, Danjon's equation deserves
more attention than it has yet received
from those concerned with forecasting solar
activity.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The research reported in this paper has been
sponsored by the Air Force Cambridge Research
Laboratories, Office of Aerospace Research, under
contract AF19 (628)-3322.
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