I'm not trained in this, but since solar eclipses are caused by the moon passing between the earth and the sun (correct?), I would say either have a moon with a very fast orbit and no variances OR perhaps multiple moons, which could allow for all sorts of interesting combinations and variations, depending on orbit and size and if/how the orbits overlap, plus a Grand Conjunction type where they all "meet" and block all light. No idea how this works with astronomical laws or astrophysics.
I'm no expert either, but this would be my guess as well. Give the planet a whole mess of moons, and some kind of combination would happen to get the cause you wanted. You wouldn't have to go into detail about how, if someone told me a planet had 30 moons, I'd buy that one spot got regular eclipses.
Germany would be hard. If you had a planet with no axial tilt and a moon that was much closer* so it orbited over the equator, you'd have an eclipse every month (orbit**) with totality somewhere on the equator
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Wouldn't it work also if the Eath had an axial tilt, fur for some reason, the orbit of the Moon around the Earth would be in the same plane that the orbit of the Earth arounf the Sun ?
I think it would, but any misalignment would be more sensitive to missing the Earth and I suspect you'd only get the tropics in your eclipses. I'd have to draw a picture. A misalignment could help you get the mid-latitudes (like we do now), but means some months would have no eclipse anywaere.
Or else you make your Moon big enough or close enough (or both) that the zone of totality gets a lot bigger.
And you'd still need the Earth spinning with a nice small-denominator fraction of a month spin. Like say, exactly 29.5 days.
So eclipses are caused when the moon, earth and sun are all in a line. If the earth's in the middle, it's an eclipse of the moon. If the moon's in the middle, it's an eclipse of the sun. (As a GIF I saw recently pointed out, if the sun's in the middle, it's an apocalypse
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If i remember my astronomy course, aren't most orbits actually elliptic? That's what produces the 'retrograde' motion of the planets, right? By definition of heat radiation, doesn't that mean at least some of the seasonal variance is produced by the orbit itself?
So hypothetically, isn't it possible to have an orbit with a relatively flat elliptic shape? I think that should produce seasons of a sort, even if it's minimal in terms of climate changes over the course of the orbit. You'd still have relatively cooler periods and warmer periods.
My thought to solve this problem would be to start with your moon orbit in the same plane as the planet orbit, stand the planet axis perpendicular to it's orbit plane, and start with small changes in the moon and planet orbit to get to where you want.
Of course, I say this with the comfort of my orbital mechanics textbook in the next room....
You would need a very precise relationship between the moon's rotation and the planet's. It would also help if the moon's orbit were exactly in line with the planet's about the sun.
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Edit: Haha, my default icon is fitting for this.
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Or else you make your Moon big enough or close enough (or both) that the zone of totality gets a lot bigger.
And you'd still need the Earth spinning with a nice small-denominator fraction of a month spin. Like say, exactly 29.5 days.
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So hypothetically, isn't it possible to have an orbit with a relatively flat elliptic shape? I think that should produce seasons of a sort, even if it's minimal in terms of climate changes over the course of the orbit. You'd still have relatively cooler periods and warmer periods.
My thought to solve this problem would be to start with your moon orbit in the same plane as the planet orbit, stand the planet axis perpendicular to it's orbit plane, and start with small changes in the moon and planet orbit to get to where you want.
Of course, I say this with the comfort of my orbital mechanics textbook in the next room....
-boogie
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You would need a very precise relationship between the moon's rotation and the planet's. It would also help if the moon's orbit were exactly in line with the planet's about the sun.
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