Partial Lunar Eclipse: September 07, 2006

Geographic Region: Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia

The second lunar eclipse of the year is a rather small partial eclipse. The penumbral phase begins at 16:42 UT, but most observers will not be able to visually detect the faint shadow until about 17:30 UT. A timetable for the major phases of the eclipse is as follows:

In spite of the fact that the eclipse is shallow (the Moon's northern limb dips just 6.3 arc-minutes into Earth's dark umbral shadow), the partial phase lasts over 1½ hours. This is due to the grazing geometry of the Moon and umbra.

At the instant of greatest eclipse (18:51 UT), the Moon will stand near the zenith for observers in the central Indian Ocean. At that time, the umbral eclipse magnitude will be 0.190. The event is best seen from Africa, Asia, Australia and Eastern Europe. Unfortunately, none of the eclipse is visible from North America.

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