Tuesday July 16th the Moon will be crossing the plane of the ecliptic moving south. This is known as the descending node, one of two intersections the Moon’s orbital path (dark green line) has with the ecliptic.
On the day of the node crossing the full Moon will be passing through the Earth’s shadow giving the part of the world where the Moon will be visible a 65% partial lunar eclipse. This will be a penumbral lunar eclipse during which the Moon passes through the fainter outer Earth’s shadow, the penumbra. However the Moon will be passing deeply into the penumbral shadow giving viewers an relatively dark penumbral eclipse lasting more than 2 hours.
The full Moon rises shortly before midnight July 16th and is about 6-7o to the east from the ringed planet Saturn. The graphic shows how far the Moon has moved from the Earth’s shadow since the end of the Eclipse.
So where will the eclipse be visible? Not from the U.S. of A. The table below shows eclipse times in UT and a quick conversion to my time zone, U.S.A. Central Daylight Time (CDT=UT-5) shows the eclipse begins at 1:43 pm CDT, maximum is at 4:30 pm CDT, and eclipse ends at 7:17 pm CDT – all times are before the Moon rises for my time zone as well as the rest of North America.
Penumbral eclipse begins: 18:43:53 UT
Partial eclipse begins: 20:01:43 UT
Maximum eclipse: 21:30:43 UT
Partial eclipse ends: 22:59:39 UT
Penumbral eclipse ends: 00:17:36 on 17 Jul UT
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On the day of the node crossing the 12.0-day old waxing gibbous Moon will be over the southern horizon and will be about 6-7o to the east from the ringed planet Saturn. Jupiter shines brightly further to the west near the reddish star Antares. With binoculars or telescope the dwarf planet Ceres may be visible.
