A total lunar eclipse occurred at the Moon’s ascending node of orbit on Wednesday, June 15, 2011, with an umbral magnitude of 1.7014. It was a central lunar eclipse, in which part of the Moon passed through the center of the Earth's shadow. A lunar eclipse occurs when the Moon moves into the Earth's shadow, causing the Moon to be darkened. A total lunar eclipse occurs when the Moon's near side entirely passes into the Earth's umbral shadow. Unlike a solar eclipse, which can only be viewed from a relatively small area of the world, a lunar eclipse may be viewed from anywhere on the night side of Earth. A total lunar eclipse can last up to nearly two hours, while a total solar eclipse lasts only a few minutes at any given place, because the Moon's shadow is smaller. Occurring about 4.1 days after perigee (on June 11, 2011, at 21:40 UTC), the Moon's apparent diameter was larger.

The last time a lunar eclipse was closer to the center of the Earth's shadow was on July 16, 2000. The next central total lunar eclipse occurred on July 27, 2018.

Visibility and viewing

The eclipse was completely visible over east Africa, Antarctica, and west, central, and south Asia, seen rising over Europe, west Africa, and South America and setting over east Asia and Australia.

In western Asia, Australia, and the Philippines, the lunar eclipse was visible just before sunrise. It was very visible in the clear and cloudless night sky throughout eastern and southeast Asia. Africa, far eastern Russia and Europe witnessed the whole event even in the late stages (as in partial lunar eclipse). The Americas (including North and northwestern South America) missed the eclipse completely (except in most areas) because it occurred at moonset.

Hourly motion shown right to leftThe Moon's hourly motion across the Earth's shadow in the constellation of Ophiuchus (north of Scorpius).
Visibility map

Images

NASA chart of the eclipse

Gallery

Eclipse details

Shown below is a table displaying details about this particular lunar eclipse. It describes various parameters pertaining to this eclipse.

June 15, 2011 Lunar Eclipse Parameters
ParameterValue
Penumbral Magnitude2.68833
Umbral Magnitude1.70136
Gamma0.08968
Sun Right Ascension05h35m33.6s
Sun Declination+23°19'06.1"
Sun Semi-Diameter15'44.7"
Sun Equatorial Horizontal Parallax08.7"
Moon Right Ascension17h35m32.3s
Moon Declination-23°13'51.6"
Moon Semi-Diameter15'57.2"
Moon Equatorial Horizontal Parallax0°58'33.0"
ΔT66.5 s

Eclipse season

This eclipse is part of an eclipse season, a period, roughly every six months, when eclipses occur. Only two (or occasionally three) eclipse seasons occur each year, and each season lasts about 35 days and repeats just short of six months (173 days) later; thus two full eclipse seasons always occur each year. Either two or three eclipses happen each eclipse season. In the sequence below, each eclipse is separated by a fortnight. The first and last eclipse in this sequence is separated by one synodic month.

Eclipse season of June–July 2011
June 1 Descending node (new moon)June 15 Ascending node (full moon)July 1 Descending node (new moon)
Partial solar eclipse Solar Saros 118Total lunar eclipse Lunar Saros 130Partial solar eclipse Solar Saros 156

Related eclipses

Eclipses in 2011

Metonic

Tzolkinex

Half-Saros

Tritos

Lunar Saros 130

Inex

Triad

  • Preceded by: Lunar eclipse of August 14, 1924
  • Followed by: Lunar eclipse of April 15, 2098

Lunar eclipses of 2009–2013

This eclipse is a member of a semester series. An eclipse in a semester series of lunar eclipses repeats approximately every 177 days and 4 hours (a semester) at alternating nodes of the Moon's orbit.

The penumbral lunar eclipses on February 9, 2009 and August 6, 2009 occur in the previous lunar year eclipse set, and the lunar eclipses on April 25, 2013 (partial) and October 18, 2013 (penumbral) occur in the next lunar year eclipse set.

Lunar eclipse series sets from 2009 to 2013
Ascending nodeDescending node
SarosDate ViewingType ChartGammaSarosDate ViewingType ChartGamma
1102009 Jul 07Penumbral−1.49161152009 Dec 31Partial0.9766
1202010 Jun 26Partial−0.70911252010 Dec 21Total0.3214
1302011 Jun 15Total0.08971352011 Dec 10Total−0.3882
1402012 Jun 04Partial0.82481452012 Nov 28Penumbral−1.0869
1502013 May 25Penumbral1.5351

Saros 130

This eclipse is a part of Saros series 130, repeating every 18 years, 11 days, and containing 71 events. The series started with a penumbral lunar eclipse on June 10, 1416. It contains partial eclipses from September 4, 1560 through April 12, 1903; total eclipses from April 22, 1921 through September 11, 2155; and a second set of partial eclipses from September 21, 2173 through May 10, 2552. The series ends at member 71 as a penumbral eclipse on July 26, 2678.

The longest duration of totality will be produced by member 35 at 101 minutes, 53 seconds on June 26, 2029. All eclipses in this series occur at the Moon’s ascending node of orbit.

GreatestFirst
The greatest eclipse of the series will occur on 2029 Jun 26, lasting 101 minutes, 53 seconds.PenumbralPartialTotalCentral
1416 Jun 101560 Sep 041921 Apr 221975 May 25
Last
CentralTotalPartialPenumbral
2083 Jul 292155 Sep 112552 May 102678 Jul 26

Eclipses are tabulated in three columns; every third eclipse in the same column is one exeligmos apart, so they all cast shadows over approximately the same parts of the Earth.

Series members 23–44 occur between 1801 and 2200:
232425
1813 Feb 151831 Feb 261849 Mar 09
262728
1867 Mar 201885 Mar 301903 Apr 12
293031
1921 Apr 221939 May 031957 May 13
323334
1975 May 251993 Jun 042011 Jun 15
353637
2029 Jun 262047 Jul 072065 Jul 17
383940
2083 Jul 292101 Aug 092119 Aug 20
414243
2137 Aug 302155 Sep 112173 Sep 21
44
2191 Oct 02

Tritos series

This eclipse is a part of a tritos cycle, repeating at alternating nodes every 135 synodic months (≈ 3986.63 days, or 11 years minus 1 month). Their appearance and longitude are irregular due to a lack of synchronization with the anomalistic month (period of perigee), but groupings of 3 tritos cycles (≈ 33 years minus 3 months) come close (≈ 434.044 anomalistic months), so eclipses are similar in these groupings.

Series members between 1801 and 2200
1804 Jan 26 (Saros 111)1814 Dec 26 (Saros 112)1825 Nov 25 (Saros 113)1836 Oct 24 (Saros 114)1847 Sep 24 (Saros 115)
1858 Aug 24 (Saros 116)1869 Jul 23 (Saros 117)1880 Jun 22 (Saros 118)1891 May 23 (Saros 119)1902 Apr 22 (Saros 120)
1913 Mar 22 (Saros 121)1924 Feb 20 (Saros 122)1935 Jan 19 (Saros 123)1945 Dec 19 (Saros 124)1956 Nov 18 (Saros 125)
1967 Oct 18 (Saros 126)1978 Sep 16 (Saros 127)1989 Aug 17 (Saros 128)2000 Jul 16 (Saros 129)2011 Jun 15 (Saros 130)
2022 May 16 (Saros 131)2033 Apr 14 (Saros 132)2044 Mar 13 (Saros 133)2055 Feb 11 (Saros 134)2066 Jan 11 (Saros 135)
2076 Dec 10 (Saros 136)2087 Nov 10 (Saros 137)2098 Oct 10 (Saros 138)2109 Sep 09 (Saros 139)2120 Aug 09 (Saros 140)
2131 Jul 10 (Saros 141)2142 Jun 08 (Saros 142)2153 May 08 (Saros 143)2164 Apr 07 (Saros 144)2175 Mar 07 (Saros 145)
2186 Feb 04 (Saros 146)2197 Jan 04 (Saros 147)

Inex series

This eclipse is a part of the long period inex cycle, repeating at alternating nodes, every 358 synodic months (≈ 10,571.95 days, or 29 years minus 20 days). Their appearance and longitude are irregular due to a lack of synchronization with the anomalistic month (period of perigee). However, groupings of 3 inex cycles (≈ 87 years minus 2 months) comes close (≈ 1,151.02 anomalistic months), so eclipses are similar in these groupings.

Series members between 1801 and 2200
1808 Nov 03 (Saros 123)1837 Oct 13 (Saros 124)1866 Sep 24 (Saros 125)
1895 Sep 04 (Saros 126)1924 Aug 14 (Saros 127)1953 Jul 26 (Saros 128)
1982 Jul 06 (Saros 129)2011 Jun 15 (Saros 130)2040 May 26 (Saros 131)
2069 May 06 (Saros 132)2098 Apr 15 (Saros 133)2127 Mar 28 (Saros 134)
2156 Mar 07 (Saros 135)2185 Feb 14 (Saros 136)

Half-Saros cycle

A lunar eclipse will be preceded and followed by solar eclipses by 9 years and 5.5 days (a half saros). This lunar eclipse is related to two annular solar eclipses of Solar Saros 137.

June 10, 2002June 21, 2020

See also

Notes

  • Bao-Lin Liu, Canon of Lunar Eclipses 1500 B.C.-A.D. 3000, 1992

External links

  • , University of Applied Sciences Offenburg/Germany
  • 29 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine
  • , Ciclope group/Technical University of Madrid
  • , Sky Watchers Association of North Bengal
  • Eclipse Predictions by Fred Espenak, NASA/GSFC [dead link]
  • 28 August 2011 at the Wayback Machine – the Turkish National Observatory
  • . The eclipse stages are also being incorporated into a Google doodle operating during the eclipse.

Webcast

  • The Central Lunar Eclipse was shown live through WEBCAST – By Sky Watchers Association of North Bengal(SWAN) Siliguri, West Bengal or
  • By Eclipse Chaser Athaenium New Delhi
  • By Astronation.net 16 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine
  • By Ciclope group and Shelios