Total Lunar Eclipse of the Century Today
posted on Jun 15, 2011 @ 10:45AM
A Total lunar eclipse of the century will take place on Wednesday. It is the first of two total lunar eclipses in 2011, the second would occur on December 10.
According to experts, it is a relatively rare central eclipse, where the Moon passes through the central line of the Earths shadow. The last lunar eclipse closer to the centre of the Earths shadow was on July 16, 2000. The next such total lunar eclipse will be on July 27, 2018. All this would happen during the total lunar eclipse that would begin at 10.54 pm on Wednesday.
“The total phase of this lunar eclipse will last 100 minutes. The last eclipse to exceed this duration was in July 2000,” she said.
The total lunar eclipse will begin at 00:52:30 IST and end at 02:32:42. The partial eclipse will begin at 23:52:56 IST and end at 03:32:15.
The eclipse will be visible completely in Africa and Central Asia. It will be visible rising over South America, Western Africa and Europe, and seen setting over Eastern Asia, and Australia, C.B. Devgun from Science Popularisation Association of Communicators and Educators said.
The relatively rare total lunar eclipse will have a magnitude of 1.70, said N. Sri Raghunandan Kumar of Planetary Society of India.
Also, a star named 51 Ophiuchi will be occulted during the eclipse.