The penumbral lunar eclipse is usually neglected by amateurs, and unremarkable by naked eyes for the ordinary people, and the astronomers sometimes. However, this eclipse was an exception ! Where it was a TOTAL penumbral eclipse, that means all the Moon's disk entered the Earth's penumbra.
Such event is not so frequent. For example, from 2001 BC to 2526 AD there are 10936 lunar eclipses, 132 of which are total penumbral eclipses. This corresponds to a mere 1.2 % of all eclipses (Observer's HandBook). The last total penumbral eclipse occurred on 3 March 1988, while the next will be on 14 March 2006. JAS got an E-mail from the well-known astronomer Mr. Jean Meeus, where he said: "What is surprising is the variation of their frequency with a period of 586 years. So, for instance, there were NO total penumbral eclipses between 1700 and 1799, only ONE between 1800 and 1899, but TEN between 1900 and 1999, and FIVE between 2000 and 2099."
Thus, JAS organized a special astronomical night to observe this rare event, and we announced it in the local newspaper, as well as the radio. The observation was held among Al-Qala'a Mountain ruins, where more than 30 persons attended.
The Moon entered the penumbra at 16:04:35 local time, but the Moon was not above the horizon at that time, since the Moon's rise on that day was at 17:05 local time, what surprised us, that the eclipse was obvious when the Moon was very low over the Eastern horizon. The eclipse reached the maximum at 18:18 local time, at that time the eclipse was very obvious by naked eyes, as well as the telescopes. And at last the eclipse ended at 20:30:20 local time.
We were lucky that an airport was facing us, and two aeroplanes crossed the Moon's disk during the eclipse, making a great transit, and we did our best to get a picture for this magnificent show, but unfortunately, we faced problems in the camera !
The coordinates of our location are:-
- Longitude: 35:56 E
- Latitude: 31:57 N
- Elevation: 840 m
- Time Zone: UT+2
At 17:20, 1/500 second | At 17:55, 1/1000 second |
|---|---|
At 17:55, 1/500 second | At 18:17, 1/125 second |