-> When the moon is eclipsed by the earth, a *very* short travel is spent in 
-> totality. You dismissed the refracted sunlight, and ignored the diameter of  
-> sun. 
  
I think I said that I had ignored nit-picking details. Yes, refraction 
would add one more degree to the 18 degrees I calculated, and the size 
of the sun would add 0.5 degrees more. Big deal. 
  
The diameter of the umbra of the earth's shadow at the distance of the 
moon is about 75% of the diameter of the earth. Any point on the lunar 
surface that crosses the umbra diametrically spends about 1.5 hours in 
totality. 
  
                             dow 
--- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v3.0pr5