Lunar Eclipse

Annular Solar Eclipse of January 26

The first solar eclipse of 2009 occurs at the Moon's ascending node in western Capricornus. An annular eclipse will be visible from a wide track that traverses the Indian Ocean and western Indonesia. A partial eclipse will be seen within the much larger path of the Moon's penumbral shadow, which includes the southern third of Africa, Madagascar, Australia except Tasmania, southeast India, Southeast Asia and Indonesia. (Figure 1).

The annular path begins in the South Atlantic at 06:06 UT when the Moon's antumbral shadow meets Earth and forms a 363 kilometre wide corridor. Traveling eastward, the shadow quickly sweeps south of the African continent, missing it by approximately 900 kilometres. Slowly curving to the northeast the path crosses the southern Indian Ocean. Greatest eclipse[1] takes place at 07:58:39 UT when the eclipse magnitude[2] will reach 0.9282. At this instant, the annular duration is 7 minutes 54 seconds, the path width is 280 kilometres and the Sun is 73° above the flat horizon formed by the open ocean.

The central track continues northeast where it finally encounters land in the form of the Cocos Islands and onward to southern Sumatra and western Java (Figure 2). At 09:40 UT, the central line duration is 6 minutes 18 seconds and the Sun's altitude at 25°. In its final minutes, the antumbral shadow cuts across central Borneo and clips the northwestern edge of Celebes before ending just short of Mindanao, Philippines at 09:52 UT.

Penumbral Lunar Eclipse of February 09

The first lunar eclipse of 2009 is one of four such events during the year. The first three eclipses are penumbral while the last (on Dec. 31) is partial. The Feb 09 event is the deepest penumbral eclipse of the year with a penumbral magnitude of 0.899. It will be easily visible to the naked eye as a dusky shading in the northern half of the Moon. The times of the major phases are listed below.

Penumbral Eclipse Begins: 12:38:46 UT
Greatest Eclipse: 14:38:15 UT
Penumbral Eclipse Ends: 16:37:40 UT
Figure 3 shows the path of the Moon through the penumbra as well as a map of Earth showing the regions of eclipse visibility. Eastern Canada and the USA will miss the eclipse entirely since the eclipse begins after moonset. Observers in western Canada and the USA will have the best views with moonset occurring sometime after mid-eclipse. To catch the entire event, one must be in Alaska, Hawaii, Australia, or East Asia.

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).

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).

Solar Eclipse Figures

For each solar eclipse, an orthographic projection map of Earth shows the path of penumbral (partial) and umbral (total) or antumbral (annular) eclipse. North is to the top in all cases and the daylight terminator is plotted for the instant of greatest eclipse. An asterisk (*) indicates the sub-solar point^[4] on Earth.

The limits of the Moon's penumbral shadow delineate the region of visibility of the partial solar eclipse. This irregular or saddle shaped region often covers more than half of the daylight hemisphere of Earth and consists of several distinct zones or limits. At the northern and/or southern boundaries lie the limits of the penumbra's path. Partial eclipses have only one of these limits, as do central eclipses when the Moon's shadow axis falls no closer than about 0.45 radii from Earth's centre. Great loops at the western and eastern extremes of the penumbra's path identify the areas where the eclipse begins/ends at sunrise and sunset, respectively. If the penumbra has both a northern and southern limit, the rising and setting curves form two separate, closed loops. Otherwise, the curves are connected in a distorted figure eight. Bisecting the 'eclipse begins/ends at sunrise and sunset' loops is the curve of maximum eclipse at sunrise (western loop) and sunset (eastern loop). The points P1 and P4 mark the coordinates where the penumbral shadow first contacts (partial eclipse begins) and last contacts (partial eclipse ends) Earth's surface. If the penumbral path has both a northern and southern limit, then points P2 and P3 are also plotted. These correspond to the coordinates where the penumbral shadow cone is internally tangent to Earth's disk.

In the upper left and right corners are the geocentric coordinates of the Sun and the Moon, respectively, at the instant of greatest eclipse. They are:

R.A. - Right Ascension
Dec. - Declination
S.D. - Apparent Semi-Diameter
H.P. - Horizontal Parallax

To the lower left are exterior/interior contact times of the Moon's penumbral shadow with Earth, which are defined:

P1 - Instant of first exterior tangency of Penumbra with Earth's limb. (Partial Eclipse Begins)
P2 - Instant of first interior tangency of Penumbra with Earth's limb.
P3 - Instant of last interior tangency of Penumbra with Earth's limb.
P4 - Instant of last exterior tangency of Penumbra with Earth's limb. (Partial Eclipse Ends)

They are only present in cases where the penumbral shadow falls completely within Earth's disk. For central eclipses, the lower right corner lists exterior/interior contact times of the Moon's umbral shadow with Earth's limb which are defined as follows:

U1 - Instant of first exterior tangency of Umbra with Earth's limb. (Umbral [Total/Annular] Eclipse Begins)
U2 - Instant of first interior tangency of Umbra with Earth's limb.
U3 - Instant of last interior tangency of Umbra with Earth's limb.
U4 - Instant of last exterior tangency of Umbra with Earth's limb. (Umbral [Total/Annular] Eclipse Ends)