Penumbral Lunar Eclipse of 1998 Aug 08
Fred Espenak
Key to Lunar Eclipse Figure (below)
Introduction
The Penumbral Lunar Eclipse of 1998 Aug 08 is visible from the following geographic regions:
- Americas, Europe, Africa
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 1998 Aug 08 at 02:25:55 TD (02:24:52 UT1). This is 3.4 days before the Moon reaches perigee. During the eclipse, the Moon is in the constellation Capricornus. The synodic month in which the eclipse takes place has a Brown Lunation Number of 935.
The eclipse belongs to Saros 109 and is number 71 of 71 eclipses in the series. Thus, the 1998 Aug 08 event is the last eclipse of the series . All eclipses in this series occur at the Moons descending node. The Moon moves northward with respect to the node with each succeeding eclipse in the series and gamma increases.
The penumbral lunar eclipse of 1998 Aug 08 is followed two weeks later by a annular solar eclipse on 1998 Aug 22.
Another lunar eclipse occurs one synodic month after the 1998 Aug 08 eclipse. It is the penumbral lunar eclipse of 1998 Sep 06.
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 63.2 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 109 Table - data for all eclipses in the Saros series
The tables below contain detailed predictions and additional information on the Penumbral Lunar Eclipse of 1998 Aug 08 .