Penumbral Lunar Eclipse of 1973 Jul 15
Fred Espenak
Key to Lunar Eclipse Figure (below)
Introduction
The Penumbral Lunar Eclipse of 1973 Jul 15 is visible from the following geographic regions:
- eastern Asia, Australia, Pacific, western Americas
The diagram to the right depicts the Moon's path with respect to Earth's umbral and penumbral shadows. Below it is a map showing the geographic regions of eclipse visibility. Click on the figure to enlarge it. For an explanation of the features appearing in the figure, see Key to Lunar Eclipse Figures.
The instant of greatest eclipse takes place on 1973 Jul 15 at 11:39:17 TD (11:38:33 UT1). This is 2.6 days after the Moon reaches apogee. During the eclipse, the Moon is in the constellation Sagittarius. The synodic month in which the eclipse takes place has a Brown Lunation Number of 625.
The eclipse belongs to Saros 148 and is number 1 of 70 eclipses in the series. Thus, the 1973 Jul 15 event is the very first eclipse of the series . All eclipses in this series occur at the Moons ascending node. The Moon moves southward with respect to the node with each succeeding eclipse in the series and gamma decreases.
The penumbral lunar eclipse of 1973 Jul 15 is preceded two weeks earlier by a total solar eclipse on 1973 Jun 30.
Another lunar eclipse occurs one synodic month before the 1973 Jul 15 eclipse. It is the penumbral lunar eclipse of 1973 Jun 15.
These eclipses all take place during a single eclipse season.
The eclipse predictions are given in both Terrestrial Dynamical Time (TD) and Universal Time (UT1). The parameter ΔT is used to convert between these two times (i.e., TD = UT1 + ΔT). ΔT has a value of 43.9 seconds for this eclipse.
The following links provide maps and data for the eclipse.
- Detailed Lunar Eclipse Figure - eclipse geometry diagram and map of eclipse visibility (Key to Figure)
- Saros 148 Table - data for all eclipses in the Saros series
The tables below contain detailed predictions and additional information on the Penumbral Lunar Eclipse of 1973 Jul 15 .