WHAT HOUR DID JESUS DIE ?
        
        The Gospels say that Jesus expired at the "9th HOUR or was it 9pm ?

There was NO "p.m. / a.m." in those days. But it was evening or day-light...

Imagine a time where there were no clocks which could measure time to 
the second or even minute or not even very well to the hour.  
The best they had in those days was either sundials or hourglasses.  
And sundials are grossly inaccurate by their very nature and by the 
nature of the earth's orbit around the sun and by the changing of 
the seasons, etc.

Here's how time was measured in those days: Days -- and here I mean, 
daylight portions of a given day -- were nominally divided into 12 
periods. These were the "hours."  Naturally, in winter, each "hour" 
was a lot shorter than it would be in summer, but no matter how long 
the day was, or no matter at what time of year it was, every day was 
divided into 12 periods of equal length.

Appointments in ancient times were always matters of approximation.  
If the Roman Senate, for example, was supposed to convene at the 4th hour, 
senators would more or less stroll in at a steady pace. Probably the 
sessions always began "late."

The "9th hour" comes, not at 9 p.m. (after dark), but rather after 8 
daylight hours have lapsed -- in other words, sometime in early afternoon.

As for the sabbath, it begins, not at 6 p.m. (again, a concept that 
didn't exist back then), but rather at the point of sundown -- which, 
however, in any given early April day, would have been pretty close to 
what we today would call 6 p.m. local mean time. 

But, this is only an assumption. Jesus said he died at 3 pm and there was an 
eclipse, (which was not expected) it was dark, but darker than usual. Therefore 
it is safe to assume Jesus died around 3 PM, between April 3rd - 7th, 33 AD.

        As far as the eclipse goes, some say it was scheduled to be there
on time... The eclipse on April 3rd obeyed all the natural laws of astronomy,
but for a moment in the evening, it did not. When Jesus died, the Bible
says the earth became very dark. Were the dark clouds involved as well ?
The eclipse of the moon of April 3, 33 A.D. was not full. At maximum it was, 
58-60% total and moreover it was only 16% at the point of moonrise in Jerusalem.
But if the dark encircled Jerusalem, then it is impossible to be an eclipse
because this was a lunar eclipse and if the whole world was plunged into
darkness, it's also impossible; solar eclipse creates darkness only
in certain parts of the world, covering limited areas only. Apostle Peter
on the Day of Pentecost (renewal in the Spirit) when thousands of different
people and nationalities were converted and spoke in the same tounge, 
himself said that on the day of Crucifixion, the moon turned golden red. 
That must have been an awesome image.