A penumbral lunar eclipse occurred at the Moon’s descending node of orbit on Friday, 18 October 2013, with an umbral magnitude of −0.2706. A lunar eclipse occurs when the Moon moves into the Earth's shadow, causing the Moon to be darkened. A penumbral lunar eclipse occurs when part or all of the Moon's near side passes into the Earth's penumbra. 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. The Moon's apparent diameter was near the average diameter because it occurred 8.2 days after perigee (on 10 October 2013, at 19:15 UTC) and 6.9 days before apogee (on 25 October 2013, at 10:25 UTC).

Visibility

The eclipse was completely visible over Africa, Europe, eastern South America, and west Asia, seen rising over western South America and North America and setting over south and east Asia.

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.

18 October 2013 Lunar Eclipse Parameters
ParameterValue
Penumbral Magnitude0.76603
Umbral Magnitude−0.27064
Gamma1.15082
Sun Right Ascension13h35m31.9s
Sun Declination-09°57'14.9"
Sun Semi-Diameter16'03.4"
Sun Equatorial Horizontal Parallax08.8"
Moon Right Ascension01h34m19.6s
Moon Declination+11°00'12.1"
Moon Semi-Diameter15'29.3"
Moon Equatorial Horizontal Parallax0°56'50.7"
ΔT67.2 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.

Eclipse season of October–November 2013
October 18 Descending node (full moon)November 3 Ascending node (new moon)
Penumbral lunar eclipse Lunar Saros 117Hybrid solar eclipse Solar Saros 143

Related eclipses

Eclipses in 2013

Metonic

Tzolkinex

Half-Saros

  • Preceded by: Solar eclipse of 14 October 2004
  • Followed by: Solar eclipse of 25 October 2022

Tritos

Lunar Saros 117

Inex

Triad

  • Preceded by: Lunar eclipse of 19 December 1926
  • Followed by: Lunar eclipse of 19 August 2100

Lunar eclipses of 2013–2016

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 eclipse on May 25, 2013 occurs in the previous lunar year eclipse set, and the penumbral lunar eclipse on August 18, 2016 occurs in the next lunar year eclipse set.

Lunar eclipse series sets from 2013 to 2016
Ascending nodeDescending node
SarosDate ViewingType ChartGammaSarosDate ViewingType ChartGamma
1122013 Apr 25Partial−1.01211172013 Oct 18Penumbral1.1508
1222014 Apr 15Total−0.30171272014 Oct 08Total0.3827
1322015 Apr 04Total0.44601372015 Sep 28Total−0.3296
1422016 Mar 23Penumbral1.15921472016 Sep 16Penumbral−1.0549

Saros 117

This eclipse is a part of Saros series 117, repeating every 18 years, 11 days, and containing 71 events. The series started with a penumbral lunar eclipse on April 3, 1094. It contains partial eclipses from June 29, 1238 through September 23, 1382; total eclipses from October 3, 1400 through June 21, 1815; and a second set of partial eclipses from July 2, 1833 through September 5, 1941. The series ends at member 71 as a penumbral eclipse on May 15, 2356.

The longest duration of totality was produced by member 35 at 105 minutes, 43 seconds on April 17, 1707. All eclipses in this series occur at the Moon’s descending node of orbit.

GreatestFirst
The greatest eclipse of the series occurred on 1707 Apr 17, lasting 105 minutes, 43 seconds.PenumbralPartialTotalCentral
1094 Apr 031238 Jun 291400 Oct 031563 Jan 09
Last
CentralTotalPartialPenumbral
1761 May 181815 Jun 211941 Sep 052356 May 15

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 41–62 occur between 1801 and 2200:
414243
1815 Jun 211833 Jul 021851 Jul 13
444546
1869 Jul 231887 Aug 031905 Aug 15
474849
1923 Aug 261941 Sep 051959 Sep 17
505152
1977 Sep 271995 Oct 082013 Oct 18
535455
2031 Oct 302049 Nov 092067 Nov 21
565758
2085 Dec 012103 Dec 132121 Dec 24
596061
2140 Jan 042158 Jan 142176 Jan 26
62
2194 Feb 05

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 1817 and 2200
1817 May 01 (Saros 99)1828 Mar 31 (Saros 100)1839 Feb 28 (Saros 101)1850 Jan 28 (Saros 102)1860 Dec 28 (Saros 103)
1893 Sep 25 (Saros 106)1915 Jul 26 (Saros 108)
1926 Jun 25 (Saros 109)1937 May 25 (Saros 110)1948 Apr 23 (Saros 111)1959 Mar 24 (Saros 112)1970 Feb 21 (Saros 113)
1981 Jan 20 (Saros 114)1991 Dec 21 (Saros 115)2002 Nov 20 (Saros 116)2013 Oct 18 (Saros 117)2024 Sep 18 (Saros 118)
2035 Aug 19 (Saros 119)2046 Jul 18 (Saros 120)2057 Jun 17 (Saros 121)2068 May 17 (Saros 122)2079 Apr 16 (Saros 123)
2090 Mar 15 (Saros 124)2101 Feb 14 (Saros 125)2112 Jan 14 (Saros 126)2122 Dec 13 (Saros 127)2133 Nov 12 (Saros 128)
2144 Oct 11 (Saros 129)2155 Sep 11 (Saros 130)2166 Aug 11 (Saros 131)2177 Jul 11 (Saros 132)2188 Jun 09 (Saros 133)
2199 May 10 (Saros 134)

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
1811 Mar 10 (Saros 110)1840 Feb 17 (Saros 111)1869 Jan 28 (Saros 112)
1898 Jan 08 (Saros 113)1926 Dec 19 (Saros 114)1955 Nov 29 (Saros 115)
1984 Nov 08 (Saros 116)2013 Oct 18 (Saros 117)2042 Sep 29 (Saros 118)
2071 Sep 09 (Saros 119)2100 Aug 19 (Saros 120)2129 Jul 31 (Saros 121)
2158 Jul 11 (Saros 122)2187 Jun 20 (Saros 123)

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 partial solar eclipses of Solar Saros 124.

October 14, 2004October 25, 2022

See also

External links