Related papers: L'Astronomia del Venerdi' Santo e l'ora della Sind…
The darkness of the umbra of the lunar eclipse of August 7 2017 corresponded to the predictions of A. Danjon for the Sun at its minimum. It appeared partial at moonrise in Rome similarly to the one of April 3, 33 AD in Jerusalem, supposed…
This article advances the hypothesis that the heightened eschatological sensitivity evident among the historians writing in the 5th century and its weaker echos in the time of Charlemagne were caused by the irregularities of the the…
The obscuration of a celestial body that covers another one in the background will be called a ``hierarchical eclipse''. The most obvious case is that a star or a planet will be hidden from sight by the moon during a lunar eclipse. Four…
A re-investigation of the parapegma of Euktemon (5th century BC, Athens), based on the assumption that some star observations may in fact have been calculated rather than directly observed. The calculation follows Pliny, Natural History…
The third column of the left row in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli in Rome, has a hole carved in it, of probable astronomical use. The tube aims at a point a 116 degrees of azimut, East-South-East and 17.3 degrees of altitude, the…
The 1703 was the first year of full operation of the meridian line in the Basilica of St. Maria degli Angeli in Rome. The instants of solstices and equinoxes, the \textit{Anni Cardines}, obtained by comparing transit timings of Sun and…
On the spur of Calvary the Shroud appears. On this rock the Scriptures are fulfilled, and this rock, located exactly to the West of the Temple of Jerusalem, becomes mystically the new orient, place of the Resurrection of the Lord. The…
Solar eclipses play an important role in the history of astronomy because their observation allowed astrophysics to expand. The eclipse of August 30th, 1905 is particularly interesting since the line of totality passes through Spain and…
One additional position of the famous Mataveri calendar of Easter Island has been interpreted. New data on the watchings of Venus and Aldebaran have been rendered. Some reports about the sun, the moon as well as Sirius are of our interest,…
The non-spherical shape of the Sun has been invoked to explain the anomalous precession of Mercury. A brief history of some methods for measuring solar diameter is presented. Archimedes was the first to give upper and lower values for solar…
The theory of inertial induction, which has been quite successful in explaining a number of hitherto unexplained astrophysical phenomena, predicts a redshift in light grazing massive objects. The total solar eclipse on 11 August 1999 offers…
In 1911 Einstein proposed that light-bending by the Sun's gravitational field could be measured during a total solar eclipse. The first opportunity in which this measurement would be tried, was during the total solar eclipse of October 10,…
Astronomical observations were used as a marker for time and the Calendar from ancient times. A more subtle calibration of epochs is thrown up by an observation of the position of the solstices and equinoxes, because these points shift in…
Old algorithms are still in use nowadays setting the Easter date accordingly to some elements giving the Spring Equinox and the New Moon for a given year. At least two different approaches (by the Orthodox and Catholic Churches) provide…
The variation of the solar diameter is the subject of hot debates due to the possible effect on Earth climate and also due to different interpretations of long period solar variabilities, including the total solar irradiance. We shortly…
The partial lunar eclipse of July 16, 2019, left the lower part of the Moon illuminated at its maximum phase in Padova (Italy). Occulting it behind far buildings it was possible to compare the light of Jupiter and Saturn de-focused to the…
It is known that Sir Isaac Newton suggested a date for the Passion of Christ in the posthumously published "Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John" (1733). What was not known is that the first attempts to…
Previously, the most prominent explanation for the Star of Bethlehem was to identify one of many astronomical events in the sky as being the inspiration for the trip of the Magi. However, all the astronomical answers have detailed…
An asteroidal occultation of a 8.5 V magnitude star can be difficult to be observed without an automatic pointing system. It was the case of 474 Prudentia occulting HIP 1927 on 5 September 2010, observed from the center of Rome. The…
For many decades scholars converse how to correctly include the Old Babylonian Empire into the absolute timeline of history. A cuneiform text from the series Enuma Anu Enlil (EAE #20) reports on the destruction of Babylon after a lunar and…