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May 16th, 2003 Moon Total Eclipse

The Moon eclipse of May 16th, 2003 is a total Moon eclipse and a South-American one. South America is indeed best favoured for this eclipse. In Europe, only the first phases will be well observable at the Moon will then set and sun rise, yielding light early. In the eastern USA, the eclipse will be mainly observable from moon rise (note: in the evening of May, 15th) and from its total phases onward. The eclipse is invisble in Asia (China, Japan, India), Russia and Australia. Next total Moon eclipse will be in November, 9th, 2003 (it will be invisible for Australia, New Zealand and Japan). 2003 and 2004 are particularly favoured as, this year and next one, there will be two total lunar eclipses as there has not been any since 2001

The timing of the eclipse is:

Durations:

For a more detailed timing and additional data, see at Fred Espenak's Eclipse Home Page. The Moon transits in the northern part of the Earth's umbra. The Moon being at its perigee (nearest to Earth), its diameter will be important (33.4 arc-minutes). The Moon northern limb at greatest eclipse passes à 4.5 arcminutes form the northern edge of the umbra. The conditions of the eclipse make that the southern parts of Moon will be deeper in the Earth's shadow than northern ones. The Moon is located in the Scales, and west of Antares (of the Scorpion). About how a Moon eclipse works and observational techniques, see the tutorials "Moon Eclipses" and "Observing a Moon Eclipse"

Observation Reports: the eclipse seems to have been deep; maybe a volcano which erupted in the Northern Mariana Islands from Saturday, May, 10th onward, had noticeable effects; for advanced observers, the eclipse was between 1 and 2 of Danjon's scale). They had a gallery at SpaceWeather.com but as they changed their site, it takes now to use the "Archives" page and look about the date of the eclipse (May, 16th)