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July 7th, 2009 Penumbral Lunar Eclipse

This second lunar eclipse of the year 2009 is remarkable in that it's a partial penumbral eclipse. On the one hand, the Moon will just be gliding inside the 'penumbra' of the Earth, instead of the darker 'umbra'. And on the other hand, it's just the northernmost part of the lunar disk which will skim into that lighter shadow of the Earth. 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. for more about Moon eclipses, theoretically, see our tutorial: Moon Eclipses

A penumbral Moon eclipse, generally, is less spectacular than a total or partial one, as the dimming of the Moon may be harder to observe. It's a good show, worth the observation however as, for this one, the observation might be tough however, and a challenge as the Moon really is just barely dipping into the Earth's penumbra. Due to the configuration, the eclipse will affect the northermost parts of the Moon only. This eclipse is theoretically observable in its entirety over the Pacific Ocean, part of Alaska, eastern Australia, New Zealand, the West of North America (with about the two-thirds of the USA), and the West and South of South America. Countries from Japan to western Australia have the eclipse en cours at moonrise only, as the northwestern part of North America, and the northwestern part of South America have the eclipse interrupted by moonset. The most part of Eurasia, from China to Europe, and the whole of Africa don't have any eclipse

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): -0.9084
- penumbral magnitude (fraction of Moon's diameter immersed in the penumbra at greatest): 0.1824
- greatest eclipse: 09:38:38.4 UT
- eclipse semi-duration (penumbral): 01:05:50
- eclipse contacts (in UT): P1 at 08:32:48, P4 at 10:44:27

see a map of the July 7th, 2009 penumbral lunar eclipse (path of the Moon within the Earth's penumbra and map of the visibility of the eclipse worldwide) (39 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