Total lunar eclipse of May 16, 2022

a total eclipse of the moon by aaron collier

A total lunar eclipse will take place on May 16, 2022, and be visible from the Americas, Europe, and Africa.

The instant of the greatest eclipse takes place at 04:11 UTC. This is 1.5 days before the Moon reaches the perigee, making it a Super Blood Moon eclipse. 

During the eclipse, the Moon is in the constellation Libra and the synodic month in which the eclipse takes place has a Brown Lunation Number of 1229.1

The eclipse belongs to Saros 131 and is number 34 of 72 eclipses in the series. All eclipses in this series occur at the Moon’s descending node.

The Moon moves northward with respect to the node with each succeeding eclipse in the series and gamma increases.

total lunar eclipse of may 16 2022

This total eclipse is central meaning the Moon’s disk actually passes through the axis of Earth’s umbral shadow. It has an umbral eclipse magnitude of 1.4154, and Gamma has a value of -0.2532.

Because they are so deep, such eclipses typically have the longest total phases.

In this case, the duration of totality lasts 85.5 minutes.

The next eclipse will be a partial solar eclipse on October 25, 2022, followed by another total lunar eclipse on November 8.

Reference:

1 Total lunar eclipse of May 16, 2022 – Fred Espenak

Featured image credit: Aaron Collier

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