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June 4th, 2012 Partial Lunar Eclipse

This first Moon eclipse in 2012 is partial one, the June 4th, 2012 partial lunar eclipse. A partial eclipse occurs when the Moon is partially passing only into the Earth's dark 'umbra', leading to that some part of the Moon is neatly indented. A fine show! It is the Moon's southern limb which will transit into the Earth's umbra, dipping there by 12.3', or a third. The partial eclipse phase is to last 2 hours. for more about Moon eclipses, theoretically, see our tutorial: 'Moon Eclipses'

The whole of the eclipse is observable from few places in the Pacific Ocean area. A part of Alaska, central and eastern Australia, New Zealand, the Island of New Guinea and all of the Pacific islands are concerned. From the Alaska down to most of South America, observers will have the eclipse interrupted by Moonset as countries from easternmost Siberia down to eastern India and to Indonesia have the eclipse already encours by Moonrise. Northeasternmost North America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Russia down to central Siberia do not have any eclipse at all

a view of how the June 4th, 2012 Partial Lunar Eclipse will look like about greatest. picture courtesy site 'Amateur Astronomy'

The eclipse's main data are the following (data as of November 2011, F. Espenak, NASA/GSFC). 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): 0.3705
- greatest eclipse: 11:03:13.4 UT
- eclipse duration (penumbral): 04h30m09s
- eclipse duration (umbral): 02h06m37s
- eclipse contacts (in UT): P1 (penumbral eclipse begins) at 08:48:09, U1 (partial eclipse begins) at 09:59:53, U4 (partial eclipse ends) at 12:06:30, P4 (penumbral eclipse ends) at 13:18:17. No U2 nor U3 which occur during a total lunar eclipse only

see a .PDF map for the June 4th, 2012 Partial Lunar Eclipse (path of the Moon within the Earth's umbra and map of the visibility of the eclipse worldwide) (a smaller .gif version is also available). map courtesy Fred Espenak - NASA/GSFC

. for more about this eclipse and for more about solar and lunar eclipses generally, you may see at Fred Espenak's NASA's eclipse website