September 1996 lunar eclipse

Total Lunar Eclipse September 27, 1996
The mid-infrared image of the Moon was taken during a September 1996 lunar eclipse by the SPIRIT-III instrument aboard the orbiting Midcourse Space Experiment (MSX) satellite.
The Moon passes west to east (right to left) across the Earth's umbral shadow, shown in hourly intervals.
Series	127 (41 of 72)
Duration (hr:mn:sc)
Totality	1:09:12
Partial	3:23:17
Penumbral	5:20:52
Contacts
P1	0:13:59 UTC
U1	1:12:43
U2	2:19:46
Greatest	2:54:22
U3	3:28:57
U4	4:35:59
P4	5:34:51

A total lunar eclipse took place on Friday, September 27, 1996, the second of two lunar eclipses in 1996, the first being on Thursday, April 4. This is the 41st member of Lunar Saros 127. The previous event is the September 1978 lunar eclipse. The next event is the October 2014 lunar eclipse.

This eclipse was the second 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 04 Apr 1996 (T), 24 Mar 1997 (P) and 16 Sep 1997 (T).

Visibility

It was visible from all of North and South America, Europe and Africa.

Mid-infrared image of the Moon

During its totality, the Midcourse Space Experiment (MSX) satellite's SPIRIT-III instrument took the image of the Moon in mid-infrared. At these wavelengths, MSX was able to characterize the thermal (heat) distribution of the lunar surface during the eclipse. The brightest regions are the warmest, and the darkest areas are the coolest. The well-known crater Tycho is the bright object to the south of center. Numerous other craters are also seen as bright spots, indicating that their temperature is higher than in the surrounding dark mare.^[1]

Related eclipses

Eclipses of 1996

Lunar year series

This is the second of four lunar year eclipses at the descending 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

Saros series

Lunar saros series 127, repeating every 18 years and 11 days, has a total of 72 lunar eclipse events including 54 umbral lunar eclipses (38 partial lunar eclipses and 16 total lunar eclipses). Solar Saros 134 interleaves with this lunar saros with an event occurring every 9 years 5 days alternating between each saros series.

Greatest	First
The greatest eclipse of the series occurred on 1888 Jul 23, lasting 102 minutes.	Penumbral	Partial	Total	Central
	1275 Jul 09	1473 Nov 04	1798 May 29	1834 Jun 21
	Last
	Central	Total	Partial	Penumbral
	1960 Sep 05	2068 Nov 09	2429 Jun 17	2555 Sep 02

1901–2100
1906 Aug 04	1924 Aug 14	1942 Aug 26

1960 Sep 05	1978 Sep 16	1996 Sep 27

2014 Oct 08	2032 Oct 18	2050 Oct 30

2068 Nov 09

Half-Saros cycle

A lunar eclipse will be preceded and followed by solar eclipses by 9 years and 5.5 days (a half saros).^[2] This lunar eclipse is related to two annular solar eclipses of Solar Saros 134.

September 23, 1987	October 3, 2005

References

^ NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day: Eclipsed Moon in Infrared (8 November 2003)
^ Mathematical Astronomy Morsels, Jean Meeus, p.110, Chapter 18, The half-saros

External links

Saros cycle 127
1996 Sep 27 chart Eclipse Predictions by Fred Espenak, NASA/GSFC
September 1996 lunar eclipse

[1] NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day: Eclipsed Moon in Infrared (8 November 2003)

[2] Mathematical Astronomy Morsels, Jean Meeus, p.110, Chapter 18, The half-saros

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