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April 25th, 2013 Partial Lunar Eclipse

This first Moon eclipse in 2013 -and the first eclipse in 2013- is a partial one, the April 25th, 2013 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! for more about Moon eclipses, theoretically, see our tutorial: 'Moon Eclipses'. The April 25th, 2013 Partial Lunar Eclipse is barely partial as just 0.5 arc-minutes of the Moon's northern limb will be dipping into umbral shadow. Consequently, the partial phase lasts less than 27 minutes as that eclipse will mostly be seen like a penumbral Moon eclipse. As far as the partial eclipse is concerned, a feeble shadow will reach the northern regions of Moon. All in all, a interesting eclipse to observe!

The whole of the eclipse is observable in a area extending from mid-western Africa to Indonesia, with eastern Europe, a part of Russia, the Middle East and India involved too. From Scandinavia to South America, through western Europe and western Africa, observers will have the eclipse already encours by moonrise as, from Siberia down to Australia and New Zealand through Japan, they will have the eclipse interrupted by moonset. North America, most of the Pacific and northwestern South America do not have any eclipse

The eclipse's main data are the following (data as of October 2012, F. Espenak, NASA's 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): 0.0147
- greatest eclipse: 20:07:30 UT
- eclipse duration (penumbral): 04h07m47s
- eclipse duration (umbral): 00h26m55s
- eclipse contacts (in UT): P1 (penumbral eclipse begins) at 18:03:38, U1 (partial eclipse begins) at 19:54:08, U4 (partial eclipse ends) at 20:21:02, P4 (penumbral eclipse ends) at 22:11:26. No U2 nor U3 which occur during a total lunar eclipse only

see a .PDF map for the April 25th, 2013 partial lunar eclipse (path of the Moon within the Earth's umbra and map of the visibility of the eclipse worldwide). map courtesy Fred Espenak - NASA's 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