The May 26 eclipse is the 55th eclipse of Saros 121. The timing of craters is useful in determining the atmospheric enlargement of Earth’s shadow (see Shadow Diameters and Lunar Eclipses). Table 1 lists predicted umbral immersion and emersion times for 25 well-defined lunar craters (see Crater Timings During Lunar Eclipses). None of the eclipse is visible from Europe, Africa, or western Asia (seen visibility map in Figure 1. Similarly, western Asia will miss the earlier stages because they occur before moonrise. North and South America will miss the later stages of the eclipse because they occur after moonset. The entire event is visible from the Pacific Ocean, New Zealand and Australia. The Moon’s brightness during totality can be easily estimated using a pair of binoculars (see Moon's Apparent Magnitude During Total Lunar Eclipses). The summer constellations are well placed for viewing so a number of bright stars can be used for magnitude comparisons with the totally eclipsed Moon.Īntares (mv = +0.92v) is 13° to the southeast, Shaula (mv = +1.63) is 24° southeast, Epsilon Sgr (mv = +1.85) is 32° southeast, Arcturus (mv = -0.05) stands 49° to the northwest, and Altair (mv = +0.77) is 62° northeast of the Moon. In this case, the totally eclipsed Moon will lie in northern Scorpius 26° northwest of the brightest Sagittarian star clouds. Observers will have a similar opportunity during May's eclipse. I was amazed at how brilliantly the summer Milky Way glowed since it was all but invisible during the partial phases. Nearly 40 years ago (1982 July 06), the author watched another total lunar eclipse with the Moon in the same part of the sky. It may also be necessary to assign different Danjon values to different portions of the Moon (e.g., north vs. The exact brightness distribution in the umbra is difficult to predict, so observers are encouraged to estimate the Danjon value at mid-totality (see Danjon Scale of Lunar Eclipse Brightness). In contrast, the Moon’s southern limb lies 12.6 arc-minutes from the center of the shadow.ĭuring the total phase the southern half of the Moon will appear much darker than the northern half because the Moon samples a large range of umbral depths. This is very close to being a partial eclipse - the northern edge of the lunar limb lies within 0.3 arc-minutes of the edge of the umbral shadow.īecause of the near-miss geometry, the duration of the total phase is just 14.5 minutes. The umbral eclipse magnitude is quite shallow and peaks at 1.0095. The times of the major eclipse phases are as follows.Īt the instant of greatest eclipse (11:18:43 UT1), the Moon lies at the zenith for a point in South Pacific about 600 kilometers south of American Samoa. The Moon's orbital trajectory takes it through the northern part of Earth’s dark umbral shadow. This is a fact that the general media are sure to hype as a so-called Blood Supermoon. It is the first total eclipse of the Moon in nearly two and a half years (2019 Jan 21) and it occurs just 0.4 days after perigee (May 26 01:52 UT1).Ĭonsequently, the apparent diameter of the Moon (33.4 arc-minutes) is much larger than its mean diameter (31.1 arc-minutes). The first event of the year is a total lunar eclipse occurring at the lunar orbit's descending node in Scorpius. To learn more about UT1 and how to convert UT1 to your own local time, see Time Zones and Universal Time.Ĭlick for larger more detailed figure Total Lunar Eclipse of 2021 May 26 This astronomically derived time system is colloquially referred to as Greenwich Mean Time or GMT. Unless otherwise stated, all times and dates used in this publication are in Universal Time or UT1. The lunar eclipse diagrams also include the path of the Moon through Earth’s shadow.Ĭontact times for each principal phase are tabulated along with the magnitudes and geocentric coordinates of the Sun and the Moon at greatest eclipse. World maps show the regions of visibility for each eclipse. Predictions for the eclipses are summarized in Tables 1 through 6. In 2021, there are 2 solar eclipses and 2 lunar eclipses:
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