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Writer's pictureVamshi Tesla

Add a Reminder! on May 26 The Super Flower Blood Moon lunar eclipse


The "Super Blood Wolf Moon" eclipse of Jan. 20-21, 2019, captured at mid-totality by Imelda Joson and Edwin Aguirre from the suburbs of Boston. (Image credit: Imelda Joson/Edwin Aguirre)
The "Super Blood Wolf Moon" eclipse of Jan. 20-21, 2019, captured at mid-totality by Imelda Joson and Edwin Aguirre from the suburbs of Boston. (Image credit: Imelda Joson/Edwin Aguirre)


It'll be the first total eclipse of the moon since January 2019.

Four eclipses will occur this year, two of the moon and two of the sun. The first of these will take place during the early hours of Wednesday (May 26) when the full moon becomes completely immersed in Earth's dark umbral shadow, producing the first total lunar eclipse since January 2019.


Unfortunately, those who live in the eastern third of the United States will see little or nothing of this event, because when the visual show begins to get underway, the moon will either be approaching its setting or will have already set. Those who live in the central and especially the far-western states have the advantage of seeing at least the first half of the eclipse, if not most of it, before moonset. Along a slice of the U.S. Pacific Coast, as well as the southern and western parts of Alaska and all of Hawaii, the umbral phase of the eclipse will be visible from start to finish.

For this month's lunar eclipse, the moon will be completely in the Earth's dark umbra for a tantalizingly short length of time: 14 minutes and 31 seconds. The moon will slip through the northernmost part of the shadow.


The fraction of the lunar disk immersed in the umbra is described by the "geometrical magnitude" at mid-totality, which for this eclipse will be 1.0095 moon diameters. This is the distance from the limb of the moon closest to the shadow center across the moon to the edge of the umbra. Put another way, the moon's northern limb will be tucked a mere 20 miles (32 kilometers) inside the umbra at the moment of greatest eclipse, which occurs at 1118 GMT. This also means that totality will likely be relatively bright, because the moon's upper limb will be closest to the outer edge of the Earth's dark umbral shadow.


Below we provide a timetable for the principal stages of the lunar eclipse for five time zones. N.A. ("Not Available") refers to when the moon has set and that particular stage is not visible. From Hawaii, the opening stages of the eclipse occur prior to midnight, on late Tuesday evening (May 25).


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