Partial Lunar Eclipse: October 17, 2005

Geographic Region: Asia, Australia, Pacific Ocean, North America

The last event of the year is a rather shallow partial eclipse of the Moon. The penumbral phase begins at 09:51 UT, but most observers will not be able to visually detect the shadow until about 10:30 UT A timetable for the major phases of the eclipse is as follows:

In spite of the fact that the eclipse is so shallow (the Moon's southern limb dips just 2.2 arc-minutes into Earth's dark umbral shadow), the partial phase last nearly one hour. This is due to the grazing geometry of the Moon and umbra

At the instant of greatest eclipse (12:03 UT), the Moon will stand near the zenith for observers in the central Pacific. At that time, the umbral eclipse magnitude will be only 0.068. North Americans will all see the start of the event, but the Moon sets by mid-eclipse for observers east of the Mississippi River and Great Lakes. Further west, the entire event is visible from the Pacific coast provinces and states as well as eastern Asia and Australia.

Eclipse map and predictions courtesy of Fred Espenak - NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center.
For more information on solar and lunar eclipses, see Fred Espenak's Eclipse Home Page:

http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/eclipse.html