Penumbral Lunar Eclipse of -1953 Dec 23 (1954 Dec 23 BCE)
Fred Espenak
Introduction
The
Penumbral Lunar Eclipse of -1953 Dec 23 (1954 Dec 23 BCE)
is visible from the geographic regions shown on the map to the right.
The diagram above the map depicts the Moon's path with respect to Earth's umbral and penumbral shadows.
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 -1953 Dec 23 at 10:00:15 TD (21:25:46 UT1).
This is 6.3 days after the Moon reaches apogee.
During the eclipse, the Moon is in the constellation Cancer.
The synodic month in which the eclipse takes place has a Brown Lunation Number of -47928.
The eclipse belongs to Saros 13 and is number 21 of 73 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.
This very deep penumbral eclipse is a rare total penumbral eclipse in which the entire disk of the Moon is immersed in the penumbral shadow.
It has a penumbral eclipse magnitude of 1.0492 and a penumbral eclipse duration of 274.3 minutes.
Gamma has a value of -1.0002.
The penumbral lunar eclipse of -1953 Dec 23 is preceded two weeks earlier by a hybrid solar eclipse on -1953 Dec 07.
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., UT1 = TD - ΔT).
ΔT has a value of
45268.2
seconds for this eclipse.
The uncertainty in ΔT is
3532.9 seconds corresponding to a standard error in longitude of the eclipse visibility zones of 14.76°.
The following links provide maps and data for the eclipse.
The tables below contain detailed predictions and additional information on the
Penumbral Lunar Eclipse of -1953 Dec 23
.
Polynomial Besselian Elements: Penumbral Lunar Eclipse of -1953 Dec 23
| Polynomial Besselian Elements |
| -1953 Dec 23 at 10:00:00.0 TD (=t0) |
| n |
x |
y |
d |
f1 |
f2 |
f3 |
| 0 | 0.00829 | -0.94304 | -0.4037 | 1.22529 | 0.68453 | 0.25695 |
| 1 | 0.49997 | 0.00547 | -0.0001 | 0.00038 | 0.00039 | 0.00010 |
| 2 | 0.00022 | -0.00011 | 0.0000 | -0.00000 | -0.00000 | -0.00000 |
| 3 | -0.00001 | -0.00000 | - | - | - | - |
At time t1 (decimal hours), each besselian element is evaluated by:
x = x0 + x1*t + x2*t2 + x3*t3 (or x = Σ [xn*tn]; n = 0 to 3)
where: t = t1 - t0 (decimal hours) and t0 = 10.000
Explanation of Besselian Elements
Calendar
The Gregorian calendar (also called the Western calendar) is internationally the most widely used civil calendar.
It is named for Pope Gregory XIII, who introduced it in 1582.
On this website, the Gregorian calendar is used for all calendar dates from 1582 Oct 15 onwards.
Before that date, the Julian calendar is used.
For more information on this topic, see Calendar Dates.
The Julian calendar does not include the year 0.
Thus the year 1 BCE is followed by the year 1 CE (See: BCE/CE Dating Conventions).
This is awkward for arithmetic calculations.
Years in this catalog are numbered astronomically and include the year 0.
Historians should note there is a difference of one year between astronomical dates and BCE dates.
Thus, the astronomical year 0 corresponds to 1 BCE, and astronomical year -1 corresponds to 2 BCE, etc..
Eclipse Predictions
Predictions for the
Penumbral Lunar Eclipse of -1953 Dec 23
were generated using the
JPL DE406
solar and lunar ephemerides.
The lunar coordinates were calculated with respect to the Moon's Center of Mass.
The 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., UT1 = TD - ΔT).
ΔT has a value of
45268.2
seconds for this eclipse.
The uncertainty in ΔT is
3532.9 seconds corresponding to a standard error in longitude of the eclipse visibility zones of 14.76°.
Acknowledgments
Some of the content on this web site is based on the book Thousand Year Canon of Lunar Eclipses 1501 to 2500.
All eclipse calculations are by Fred Espenak, and he assumes full responsibility for their accuracy.
Permission is granted to reproduce this data when accompanied by an acknowledgment:
"Eclipse Predictions by Fred Espenak, www.EclipseWise.com"
The use of diagrams and maps is permitted provided that they are NOT altered (except for re-sizing) and the embedded credit line is NOT removed or covered.
