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August 16th, 2008 Partial Lunar Eclipse

More About the August 16th, 2008 Partial Lunar Eclipse! Home Page
Just click on the thumbnail to get access to views of how the August 16th, 2008 partial lunar eclipse is to be appearing as another aspect of the eclipse is illustrated, with the height at which the eclipse is to be seen occurring in the sky!
This lunar eclipse is expected to shadow a large part of the Moon, extending high North, like illustrated by the first picture as the height in the sky, at which the event will be observable, will depend mostly on the latitude at which the observer will be lying at the surface of the Earth, in the region where the eclipse is totally -or partially- observable
A show worth the observation, in any case, should the eclipse be available -totally, or partially- to you!

The last main astronomical event in 2008 is a partial Moon eclipse. A partial Moon eclipse is when the Moon's disk is indented only by the Earth's umbra and not leading to the famed, copper-hued great show of a total lunar eclipse. In any case, such a lesser show may train your observation skills, as the configuration of the eclipse, further, is interesting! The Moon is transiting in the northern part of the umbra as it's Moon southern part, up to about Sinus Iridum, which will be occulted by Earth. At mid-eclipse the Moon's northern limb passes 5.9 arc-minutes only outside the umbra's northern edge, as the Moon's southern edge is then 16.5 arc-minutes from the shadow's centre. A fine show! for more about Moon eclipses, theoretically, see our tutorial: Moon Eclipses

The zone of visibility, for the entire eclipse, is centered about Saudi Arabia, with all of the countries located from Eastern Germany to eastern India, and from Western Siberia to South Africa concerned. The westernmost parts of Africa don't have the totality of the show. The regions located East of the zone, from Western Siberia to New Zealand, with Japan, have the eclipse interrupted by moonset. The regions West, from Western Europe and Western Africa to NewFoundland, the northeastern coast of the USA, most of the West Indies and the whole of South America, at the contrary have the show already unfolding by moonrise. Most of the Pacific Ocean, the Bering regions of Russia, Alaska, and most of North and Central America do not have any eclipse at all

The eclipse's main data are the following (data as of beginning of November 2007). 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): 0.8124
- greatest eclipse: 21:10:08.5 UT
- eclipse semi-duration (penumbral): 2h 46m 59s
- eclipse semi-duration (umbral): 1h 34m 27s
- eclipse contacts (in UT): P1 at 18:23:07, U1 at 19:35:45, U4 at 22:44:38, P4 at 23:57:06

see a map of the August 16th, 2008 partial lunar eclipse (path of the Moon within the Earth's umbra and map of the visibility of the eclipse worldwide) (45 ko). map courtesy Fred Espenak - NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, site NASA Eclipse Home Page

. for more about this eclipse and for more about solar and lunar eclipses generally, see Fred Espenak's NASA Eclipse Home Page, NASA/GSFC

the August 16th 2008, partial lunar eclipse. picture with Stellarium

Observation Reports: (it's a 'Webmaster's Observation Report', from eastern France) as the weather, by the end of the day, in France, was of a relatively bad omen as far as to observe the eclipse in optimal conditions was concerned, with parts of blue sky only just forecasting good conditions by chance only, we just began our observation session by the moment when the eclipse's maximum was nearing, by 10:47 p.m. local time. The sky, at that time, was, indeed, veiled, with the indented Moon relatively well visible however (and the sky conditions improved, or got worse during the session). A bright star -Vega, of Lyra, the Lyra, likely- was near the zenith and weakly seeable only. The Moon was clearly seen enduring the eclipse, the Moon looking like a crescent at the time. A slight improvement of the clouds layer allowed then that that part of the Moon covered by the darkness of the umbra be observed like barely, grayishly luminescent. At the moment of the maximum of the eclipse, by 11:10 p.m. local time, the (northern) part of the Moon which was still lightened was still relatively important -and, in any case, still strongly delineated, as the part of the Moon in the 'umbra' of the Earth was keeping being weakly luminescent. Due to the weather conditions, we decided then to put an end to the observation session at that moment (should the conditions have kept been with clouds in veils only, they surely will have allowed to keep observing the eclipse until the end of the 'umbra' phase!)