Editing Eclipse cycle (section)

===Effect of Eccentricity===
{{main|Eclipse season}}
Another thing to consider is that the motion of the Moon is not a perfect circle.  Its orbit is distinctly elliptic, so the lunar distance from Earth varies throughout the lunar cycle. This varying distance changes the apparent diameter of the Moon, and therefore influences the chances, duration, and type (partial, annular, total, mixed) of an eclipse.  This orbital period is called the [[anomalistic month]], and together with the synodic month causes the so-called "[[full moon cycle]]" of about 14 lunations in the timings and appearances of full (and new) Moons. The Moon moves faster when it is closer to the Earth (near perigee) and slower when it is near apogee (furthest distance), thus periodically changing the timing of syzygies by up to 14 hours either side (relative to their mean timing), and causing the apparent lunar angular diameter to increase or decrease by about 6%.  An eclipse cycle must comprise close to an integer number of anomalistic months in order to perform well in predicting eclipses.

If the Earth had a perfectly circular orbit centered around the Sun, and the Moon's orbit was also perfectly circular and centered around the Earth, and both orbits were coplanar (on the same plane) with each other, then two eclipses would happen every lunar month (29.53 days). A lunar eclipse would occur at every full moon, a solar eclipse every new moon, and all solar eclipses would be the same type. In fact the distances between the Earth and Moon and that of the Earth and the Sun vary because both the Earth and the Moon have elliptic orbits. Also, both the orbits are not on the same plane. The Moon's orbit is inclined about 5.14° to Earth's orbit around the Sun. So the Moon's orbit crosses the ecliptic at two points or nodes. If a New Moon takes place within about 17° of a node, then a solar eclipse will be visible from some location on Earth.<ref name="totality">{{Cite book| last = Littmann| first = Mark |author2=Fred Espenak |author3=Ken Willcox  | title = Totality: Eclipses of the Sun | publisher = Oxford University Press | date = 2008 | isbn = 978-0-19-953209-4}}</ref><ref>[http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/LEsaros/LEperiodicity.html Periodicity of Lunar] and [http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEsaros/SEperiodicity.html Solar Eclipses], Fred Espenak</ref><ref>[http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/5MCLE/5MKLE-214173.pdf Five Millennium Catalog of Lunar] and [http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/5MCSE/TP2009-214174.pdf Solar Eclipses: -1999 to +3000], Fred Espenak and Jean Meeus</ref>

At an average angular velocity of 0.99° per day, the Sun takes 34.5 days to cross the 34° wide eclipse zone centered on each node. Because the Moon's orbit with respect to the Sun has a mean duration of 29.53 days, there will always be one and possibly two solar eclipses during each 34.5-day interval when the Sun passes through the nodal eclipse zones. These time periods are called eclipse seasons.<ref name="PSE"/> Either two or three eclipses happen each eclipse season. During the eclipse season, the [[Orbit of the Moon#Inclination|inclination]] of the [[Orbit of the Moon|Moon's orbit]] is low, hence the [[Sun]], Moon, and [[Earth]] become aligned straight enough (in [[Syzygy (astronomy)|syzygy]]) for an eclipse to occur.