April 1996 lunar eclipse

Total Lunar Eclipse April 4, 1996
Hamois, Belgium
The Moon's path through the center of the Earth's shadow.
Series (and member)	122 (55 of 75)
Duration (hr:mn:sc)
Totality	1:25:45
Partial	3:37:08
Penumbral	5:44:43
Contacts
P1	21:17:22 UTC
U1	22:21:13 UTC
U2	23:26:54 UTC
Greatest	0:09:46 UTC
U3	0:52:39 UTC
U4	1:58:21 UTC
P4	3:02:04 UTC

A total lunar eclipse took place on Thursday, April 4, 1996, the first of two total lunar eclipses in 1996, the other being on Friday, September 27. The Moon passed through the center of the Earth's shadow.

This was the last central member and 55th overall member of Lunar Saros 122. The previous event was the March 1978 lunar eclipse. The next event was the April 2014 lunar eclipse.

This eclipse was the first of an almost tetrad (that occurred when there were 4 consecutive lunar eclipses that had an umbral eclipse magnitude of 0.9 or greater). The others were 27 Sep 1996 (T), 24 Mar 1997 (P) and 16 Sep 1997 (T).

Visibility

It could be seen completely over Africa, and Europe, seen rising over North and South America, and setting over Western Asia.

Gallery

Hamois, Belgium

Related eclipses

Eclipses of 1996

• A total lunar eclipse on April 4.
• A partial solar eclipse on April 17.
• A total lunar eclipse on September 27.
• A partial solar eclipse on October 12.

Lunar year series

This is the second of four lunar year eclipses at the ascending node of the Moon's orbit.

Lunar eclipse series sets from 1995–1998
Ascending node					Descending node
Saros Photo	Date Viewing	Type Chart	Gamma		Saros Photo	Date Viewing	Type Chart	Gamma
112	1995 Apr 15	Partial	−0.95939		117	1995 Oct 08	Penumbral	1.11794
122	1996 Apr 04	Total	−0.25339		127	1996 Sep 27	Total	0.34264
132	1997 Mar 24	Partial	0.48990		137	1997 Sep 16	Total	−0.37684
142	1998 Mar 13	Penumbral	1.19644		147	1998 Sep 06	Penumbral	−1.10579
Last set	1994 May 25				Last set	1994 Nov 18
Next set	1999 Jan 31				Next set	1998 Aug 08

Half-Saros cycle

A lunar eclipse will be preceded and followed by solar eclipses by 9 years and 5.5 days (a half saros). This lunar eclipse is related to two hybrid solar eclipses of Solar Saros 129.

March 29, 1987	April 8, 2005

See also

• List of lunar eclipses
• List of 20th-century lunar eclipses

External links

• Saros cycle 122
• Andrés Valencia: Total Lunar Eclipse - April 3 '96
• 1996 Apr 04 chart Eclipse Predictions by Fred Espenak, NASA/GSFC