“The path of the Moon’s umbral shadow extends across India, China, a handful of Japanese islands and the South Pacific Ocean (Espenak and Anderson, 2008). A partial eclipse is seen within the much broader path of the Moon’s penumbral shadow, which includes most of eastern Asia, Indonesia, and the Pacific Ocean.”
– NASA
See: http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEplot/SEplot2001/SE2009Jul22T.GIF
Shanghai (population 19 million) will experience 5 minutes of totality!
Why party? For one thing — if you’re of drinking age anyway — this is the last time you’ll have the opportunity to celebrate the union of a full moon and the Winter Solstice in your lifetime. (This won’t happen until Dec 21, 2094.)
Not only that, but if you’re in North or South America, you can look forward to a full eclipse of the moon. Totality begins around midnight Pacific time if you stay up late on Monday. See:
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=moon+eclipse+dec+2010
HOWL! Dance! Celebrate the return of the sun and the antics of the moon…
Hope you had a *great* 2010. Drop me a note to tell me how your party went.
– Canton Becker
canton@gmail.com
This is the only total lunar eclipse for 2010. Visible from your area? Check here:
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=total+lunar+eclipse+2010
“The entire event is visible from North America and western South America. Observers along South America’s east coast miss the late stages of the eclipse because they occur after moonset. Likewise much of Europe and Africa experience moonset while the eclipse is in progress. Only northern Scandinavians can catch the entire event from Europe. For observers in eastern Asia the Moon rises in eclipse. None of the eclipse is visible from south and east Africa, the Middle East or South Asia.”
http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/OH/OH2010.html#LE2010Dec21T
See:
The eclipse will be visible over most of Europe, the Arabian peninsula, North Africa and Western Asia. See http://tinyurl.com/284fkyp
Visible completely over Africa, and Central Asia, visible rising over South America, Western Africa, and Europe, and setting over Eastern Asia, and Australia.
It is a relatively rare “central eclipse” where the moon passes in front of the center of the Earth’s shadow
Visible from all of Asia and Australia, seen as rising over eastern Europe, and setting over northwest North America.
*** A great chance to see a fairly dramatic eclipse from the USA ***
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse_of_May_20,_2012
An annular eclipse occurs when the Sun and Moon are exactly in line, but the apparent size of the Moon is smaller than that of the Sun. Hence the Sun appears as a very bright ring, or annulus, surrounding the outline of the Moon.
The May 2012 annular phase will be visible from the Chinese coast, the south of Japan, and the western part of the United States and Canada. Guangzhou, Tokyo and Albuquerque will be on the central path.
Its maximum will occur in the North Pacific, south of the Aleutian islands for 5 min and 46.3 s, and finish in the western United States.
It will be the first central eclipse of the 21st century in the continental USA, and also the first annular eclipse there since the solar eclipse of May 10, 1994 which was also the previous eclipse of this series Solar Saros 128.