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August 6th, 2009 Penumbral Lunar Eclipse

This third lunar eclipse in 2009 still is a partial penumbral one, and still a relatively dim one. This time, the Moon is partially passing only in the North of the Earth's penumbra, leading to that the phenomenon will have to be searched in the southern part of the Moon. There is a penumbral lunar eclipse occurring when the Moon, instead of being attained by the Earth's umbra, the darker of the Earth's shadow, is just affected, at the opposite, by the Earth's penumbra, the lighter part of the shadow. From the Moon, there would be a partial solar eclipse only. for more about Moon eclipses, theoretically, see our tutorial: Moon Eclipses

A penumbral Moon eclipse is less spectacular than a total or partial one, as the dimming of the Moon may be harder to observer. It's a good show, worth the observation however albeit the geometry of this one might, albeit in a lesser measure than for the one in July, render that relatively more difficult. The whole of the eclipse is observable, this time, from Scandinavia to the whole of Africa, the Near-East and to most of South America (some coastal margins, northwest, excepted). Iceland too is in the show. The two-thirds of North America, and central America have the eclipse en cours as the moon is rising, as countries lying from eastern Scandinavia to the Middle East, Central Asia, India and somewhere about Thailand are having the eclipse interrupted by moonset, on the other hand. Eastern Asia and Russia, Japan, Australia, Indonesia, Alaska and the northwestern parts of North America do not any eclipse at all

The eclipse's main data are the following (data as of beginning of July 2009). for more about how to observe a lunar eclipse, see our tutorial "Observing a Moon Eclipse":
- umbral magnitude (fraction of Moon's diameter immersed in the umbra at greatest): *0.6617
- penumbral magnitude (fraction of Moon's diameter immersed in the penumbra at greatest): 0.4276
- greatest eclipse: 00:39:10.9 UT
- eclipse semi-duration (penumbral): 01:38:09
- eclipse contacts (in UT): P1 at 23:01:04, P4 at 02:17:23

see a map of the August 6th, 2009 penumbral lunar eclipse (path of the Moon within the Earth's penumbra and map of the visibility of the eclipse worldwide) (40 ko). map courtesy Fred Espenak - NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, site NASA Eclipse Web Site

. for more about this eclipse and for more about solar and lunar eclipses generally, see Fred Espenak's NASA Eclipse Web Site

Observation Reports: no observation reports