Vol I · 1 — The Saros Cycle
The 18-year, 11-day, 8-hour period that brings eclipses back — 223 synodic months, 239 anomalistic months and 242 draconic months chiming together so the Sun, Earth and Moon return to nearly the same geometry.
- Classification
- Astronomical fact
- Reading room
- Publishing
- Author
- Ashe · Moonlit Zones
- Published
- 2026-08-23
The three clocks
[ Your prose here — the synodic, anomalistic and draconic months and the near-coincidence that produces the Saros. ]
What repeats, and what shifts
[ Your prose here — how each return shifts ~120° west on the globe, and how three Saroi (the exeligmos) bring it back. ]
Why no book covers this for the Moon
[ Your prose here — the gap in the literature that this book exists to fill. ]
Connections
- The Lunar Saros & Saros Echoes — The first book by Moonlit Zones — a two-volume work documenting the creation of an original interpretive framework for Lunar Saros eclipses and the Saros Echoes instrument, grounded in calculable astronomy and published with full attribution of prior art.
- Vol I · 2 — Two Separate Lineages — Solar and lunar eclipses belong to separate, independently numbered Saros series. The two events in one eclipse season share a season but not a family — a distinction this chapter establishes as the foundation of honest reading.
- The Metonic Cycle — A period of about nineteen years after which the phases of the Moon fall on very nearly the same days of the solar year. 235 lunar months are almost exactly nineteen solar years — a near-perfect reconciliation of the Moon’s months with the Sun’s year.
- The Synodic Month — The average time from one New Moon to the next — about 29.53 days. It is the cycle of the Moon’s phases as seen from Earth, and the ‘month’ at the root of lunar and lunisolar calendars.
- Vol II · 7 — The Returning Pattern — Every eighteen years and eleven days, a Saros family returns. This chapter documents the Returning Pattern cell on the Eclipse Tablet — where you stand between the pair of eclipses in a season — and how the echo of an earlier return can be felt without promising that the same event will recur.
