Penumbral Lunar Eclipse of July 07

July's penumbral eclipse is only of academic interest since the magnitude is just 0.156. Although the Moon will be above the horizon from most of Canada (Figure 4), the eclipse is so minor as to be completely invisible to the naked eye.

Total Solar Eclipse of July 22

To make up for the anemic lunar eclipse earlier in the month, a major total eclipse of the Sun occurs two weeks later. The path of the Moon's umbral shadow extends across India, China, a handful of Japanese islands and the South Pacific Ocean (Espenak and Anderson, 2008). A partial eclipse is seen within the much broader path of the Moon's penumbral shadow, which includes most of eastern Asia, Indonesia, and the Pacific Ocean (Figure 5).

The central path begins in India's Gulf of Khambhat at 00:53 UT. The Moon passes through perigee several hours earlier, so the path of totality is unusually wide.

Racing inland, the shadow sweeps over the Indian cities of Surat, Indore, Bhopal, Varanasi, and Pata as its central duration heads towards the 4-minute mark. Traveling across Bhutan, the umbra clips Nepal, Bangladesh, and Burma (Myanmar), before reaching China at 01:05 UT (Figure 6). The duration of totality surpasses 5 minutes in Sichuan province where its capital city Chengdu lies within the track 85 km north of the central line. The umbra works its way across the rest of southern China where the major cities of Chongqing, Wuhan and Hangzhou stand in the eclipse path.

As the Moon's shadow reaches the coast, China's largest city Shanghai (pop. ~19 million) experiences totality lasting 5 minutes at 01:39 UT. Around 70 km to the south, the central line duration falls just 5 seconds short of the 6-minute mark. Across the East China Sea, the umbra sweeps over Japan's Ryukyu Islands and Iwo Jima.

Greatest eclipse occurs in the South Pacific at 02:35:19 UT. At this instant, the axis of the Moon's shadow passes closest to Earth's center. The maximum duration of totality is 6_minutes 39_seconds, the Sun's altitude is 86°, and the path width is 258_km. The remainder of the path makes no major landfall; it arcs southeast through the Pacific hitting just a handful of small atolls in the Marshall Islands and Kiribati (Gilbert Islands).

The path of totality ends at 04:18 UT as the lunar shadow leaves Earth and returns to space 3.4 hours after it started its trek across our planet's surface. The 15,200 km long track covers 0.71% of Earth's surface. Path coordinates and central line circumstances are presented in Table 3.

A partial eclipse is seen from a much larger area covering East Asia, Indonesia, and the South Pacific. Local circumstances for a number of cities are listed in Table 4. All times are given in Universal Time. The Sun's altitude and azimuth, the eclipse magnitude and obscuration are all given at the instant of maximum eclipse.

This is the 37th eclipse of Saros 136. The series began on 1360 Jun 14 with the first of eight partial eclipses. The first central eclipse was annular on 1504 Sep 08. It was followed by 5 more annular eclipses before the series produced 6 hybrid eclipses from 1612 through 1703. The first total eclipse occurred on 1721 Jan 27. The central line duration of this series rapidly increased and peaked at 7 minutes 8 seconds on 1955 Jun 20. Since then, the duration is slowly decreasing. Of particular note is the 6-minute total eclipse passing through the central U. S. on 2045 Aug 12. The series will continue to produce total eclipses until 2496 May 13. After that, the family winds down with a string of 7 partial eclipses which ends on 2622 Jul 30. In all, Saros 136 produces 15 partial, 6 annular, 6 hybrid and 44 total eclipses. Complete details for the series can be found at:

http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEsaros/SEsaros136.html

Penumbral Lunar Eclipse of August 06

A shallow penumbral eclipse occurs 15 days after the total solar eclipse. Since its magnitude is only 0.402, it will not be visible to the naked eye. Details for the eclipse can be found in Figure 7.

Partial Lunar Eclipse of December 31

The last eclipse of 2009 occurs on New Year's Eve. This minor partial lunar eclipse takes place in Gemini, and is visible primarily from the Eastern Hemisphere (Figure 8). Greatest eclipse takes place at 19:23 UT when the eclipse magnitude will reach 0.0763.