Partial Lunar Eclipse - Oct 17

There will be a Partial Lunar Eclipse during the early morning hours of 2005 OCT 17 (evening for those in the Far East.) Those in the eastern portion of North America will be shut out, but those west of there will be in the line of sight. Here in Chicagoland, maximum eclipse will occur shortly before sunrise/moonset.

The eclipse's magnitude will only be 0.061, meaning at best 6.1% of the Moon's diameter will be immersed in the umbra (dark portion of Earth's shadow.)

We are living during a long stretch within the 586-year eclipse cycle in which we get relatively few partial eclipses, and most of those we do get only dip narrowly into the umbra.

Your eclipse photos would be a welcome addition to this thread.

09:53 UT -- Moon enters penumbra (gray fringe shadow of Earth)
11:36 UT -- Moon enters umbra
12:03 UT -- Maximum eclipse
12:31 UT -- Moon exits umbra
14:13 UT -- Moon exits penumbra

I've create a graphical sequence of the eclipse events as they will be seen from Chicago's Adler Planetarium, although it should well serve anyone experiencing nighttime during the eclipse. To see it, click:

http://www.curtrenz.com/astronomical.html

The graphic may be removed soon after October 17.