Total Lunar Eclipse of 2000 Jul 16
Fred Espenak
Key to Lunar Eclipse Figure (below)
Introduction
The Total Lunar Eclipse of 2000 Jul 16 is visible from the following geographic regions:
- Asia, 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 2000 Jul 16 at 13:56:39 TD (13:55:35 UT1). This is 0.9 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 959.
The eclipse belongs to Saros 129 and is number 37 of 71 eclipses in 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.
This total eclipse is central meaning the Moons disk actually passes through the axis of Earths umbral shadow. It has an umbral eclipse magnitude of 1.7684, and Gamma has a value of 0.0302. Because they are so deep, such eclipses typically have the longest total phases. In this case, the duration of totality lasts 106.4 minutes. That qualifies the eclipse as a member of a select class of exceptionally long total eclipses with durations exceeding 100 minutes.
The total lunar eclipse of 2000 Jul 16 is preceded two weeks earlier by a partial solar eclipse on 2000 Jul 01, and it is followed two weeks later by a partial solar eclipse on 2000 Jul 31.
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 64.0 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 129 Table - data for all eclipses in the Saros series
The tables below contain detailed predictions and additional information on the Total Lunar Eclipse of 2000 Jul 16 .