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The Total Lunar Eclipse of April 4th, 2015

That second major astronomical event in 2015 is the first lunar eclipse of that year, the total lunar eclipse of April 4th, 2015. A total lunar eclipse if a fine show worth the observation, with Moon progressively occulted and darkened by Earth's 'umbra,' giving a deep sense of the astronomical scales of the Universe and the large events which may occur there. for more about Moon eclipses, theoretically, see our tutorial: Moon Eclipses. Like the other total lunar eclipse in 2015, the April 4th, 2015 lunar eclipse is part of a series of four total lunar eclipse in a row by 2014 and 2015, with no partial lunar eclipses in between, each of which is separated from the other by six full moons as some call such a eclipse a 'Blood Moon' eclipse. Such rows of total lunar eclipse are relatively common at some periods, with 8 planned in the 21st century, or null, with the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries which featured none of those. There has been a total of 62 rows of four successive total eclipses since the beginning of the Christian era

As the Moon during that total eclipse will be grazing the northern edge of Earth's umbra, a clear gradient of luminosity will exist at the northwestern areas of the eclipsed Moon. The entire Moon barely will make it into the umbral shadow leading to a very short total eclipse lasting just 4 ½ minutes, at less than 2 arc-seconds inside the northern edge of the umbral shadow, which constitutes a marginally total eclipse (that may be explained as that eclipse is the first of a total lunar sequence in a Saros). The entirety of the total eclipse will only be seen in the lands surrounding the Pacific Ocean only, from eastern Siberia down to eastern Australia, to Alaska (the other parts of the Americas do not see the complete eclipse). Areas either part of that either will have the eclipse by moonrise, like from southwestern Japan and western Australia to western Siberia and most of Madagascar, or the eclipse by moonset, like in the whole of the Americas, the easternmost area of Brazil excepted. No eclipse is extent from Greenland to western Siberia, and down to southern Africa, with also the northeasternmost areas of Brazil

The eclipse's main data are the following (data as of November 2014, NASA Eclipse Web Site). 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): 1.0008
- greatest eclipse: 12:00:14.5 UT
- eclipse duration (penumbral): 05h57m32s
- eclipse duration (umbral): 03h29m00s
- eclipse duration (total): 00h04m43s
- eclipse contacts (in UT): P1 (penumbral eclipse begins) at 09:01:27, U1 (umbral eclipse begins) at 10:15:45, U2 (total eclipse begins) at 11:57:54, U3 (total eclipse ends) at 12:02:37, U4 (umbral eclipse ends) at 13:44:46, P4 (penumbral eclipse begins) at 14:58:58

see a .PDF map for the total lunar eclipse of April 4th, 2015 (path of the Moon within the Earth's umbra and map of the visibility of the eclipse worldwide). map courtesy NASA Eclipse Web Site

. for more about this eclipse and for more about solar and lunar eclipses generally, you may see at NASA Eclipse Web Site