January 2019 lunar eclipse

January 2019 lunar eclipse

Total eclipse
Oria, Italy at 5:43 UTC, end of totality
Date	20 January 2019
Gamma	0.3684
Magnitude	1.1953
Saros cycle	134 (27 of 73)
Totality	61 minutes, 59 seconds
Partiality	196 minutes, 45 seconds
Penumbral	311 minutes, 30 seconds
Contacts (UTC) P1 2:36:30 U1 3:33:54 U2 4:41:17 Greatest 5:12:16 U3 5:43:16 U4 6:50:39 P4 7:48:00
← July 2018 July 2019 →

A total lunar eclipse occurred on 21 January 2019 UTC (Coordinated Universal Time). For observers in the Americas, the eclipse took place between the evening of Sunday, 20 January and the early morning hours of Monday, 21 January. For observers in Europe and Africa, the eclipse occurred during the morning of 21 January. The Moon was near its perigee on 21 January and as such can be described as a "supermoon".^[1]

As this supermoon was also a wolf moon (the first full moon in a calendar year), it was referred to as a "super blood wolf moon"; blood refers to the typical red color of the Moon during a total lunar eclipse.^[2] This was the last total lunar eclipse until May 2021. This was a Super Full Moon because occurred less than a day before perigee and the Moon was less than exactly 360,000 km (223,694 mi).

The Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, California captured video showing a meteor between the size of an acorn and tennis ball impacting the Moon during the eclipse.^[3] The impact was observed during totality, at 4:41 UTC, on the left side of the Moon.^[4] It is the only documented case of a lunar impact during a total lunar eclipse.^[5][6]

The eclipse was visible in its entirety from North and South America, as well as portions of western Europe and northwest Africa. From locations in North America, the eclipse began during the evening hours of January 20. Observers at locations in Europe and much of Africa were able to view part of the eclipse before the Moon set in the early morning (pre-dawn) hours of January 21.

Simulated view of Earth from Moon during greatest eclipse, with infrared clouds

Visibility map

Contact points relative to Earth's umbral and penumbral shadows, here with the Moon near its descending node (left), and the hourly motion for the January 2019 lunar eclipse (right)

The penumbral phases of the eclipse changes the appearance of the Moon only slightly and is generally not noticeable.^[8]

• 
  Austin, Texas, 3:57 UTC
• 
  Seattle, Washington, 4:27 UTC
• 
  Lindsborg, Kansas, 4:40 UTC
• 
  Buenos Aires, Argentina, 4:40 UTC
• 
  San Diego, California, 4:41 UTC
• 
  Tres Piedras, New Mexico, 4:42 UTC
• 
  Chihuahua City, Mexico, 4:44 UTC
• 
  Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 5:02 UTC
• 
  Denver, Colorado, 5:03 UTC
• 
  Totality in Coralville, Iowa, 5:07 UTC (23:07 Local Time)
• 
  Macon, Georgia, 5:18 UTC
• 
  Whitpain Township, Pennsylvania, 5:26 UTC
• 
  New York City, New York, 5:37 UTC
• 
  Animation from Taubaté, Brazil
• 
  From Victoria, Canada at totality

• 
  Partial from Moscow, Russia, 3:49 UTC
• 
  Estonia, 4:41 UTC
• 
  Järna, Sweden, 4:48 UTC
• 
  Finland, 6:02 UTC
• 
  Sandl, Austria

It took place in the constellation of Cancer, just west of the Beehive Cluster.

Livestreams detected a flash of light while viewing the eclipse. It was "likely caused by the crash of a tiny, fast-moving meteoroid left behind by a comet."^[5]

Originally thinking it was electronic noise from the camera, astronomers and citizen scientists shared the visual phenomenon with each other to identify it.^[5]

When totality was just beginning at 4:41 UT, the tiny speck of light blinked south of a nearly 55-mile-wide crater in the western part of the moon.^[9]

The location of the impact may be somewhere in the lunar highlands, south of Byrgius crater, according to Justin Cowart, a graduate student in geosciences at Stony Brook University in New York who first saw the flash of light.^[5]

“A meteoroid about this size hits the moon about once a week or so,” said Cowart.^[9]

This may be the first time that a collision, during a total lunar eclipse, was captured on video.^[5]

“I have not heard of anyone seeing an impact like this during a lunar eclipse before,” said Sara Russell, a professor of planetary sciences at the Natural History Museum in London.^[5]

People posted their images and video of a flicker of light as news spread quickly on social media.^[9]

Working overtime, co-director of the Moon Impacts Detection and Analysis System, MIDAS, an astrophysicist at the University of Huelva in Spain, Jose Maria Madiedo, set up eight telescopes to watch for any impacts during the eclipse.^[9]

“Something inside of me told me that this time would be the time,” said Madiedo.^[9]

A paper calculated a mass between 20 and 100 kilograms and diameter of 30 to 50 cm that may have caused a 7–15 meter crater located "inside a triangle with vertices in the Lagrange H, K and X craters".^[10] Other astronomers estimated a 10-15 meter crater from a 45 kg asteroid moving 61,000 km/h.^[11]

• A partial solar eclipse on 6 January.
• A total lunar eclipse on 21 January.
• A total solar eclipse on 2 July.
• A partial lunar eclipse on 16 July.
• An annular solar eclipse on 26 December.

Lunar eclipse series sets from 2016–2020
Descending node					Ascending node
Saros	Date	Type Viewing	Gamma		Saros	Date Viewing	Type Chart	Gamma
109	2016 Aug 18	Penumbral	1.56406		114	2017 Feb 11	Penumbral	−1.02548
119	2017 Aug 07	Partial	0.86690		124	2018 Jan 31	Total	−0.30143
129	2018 Jul 27	Total	0.11681		134	2019 Jan 21	Total	0.36842
139	2019 Jul 16	Partial	−0.64300		144	2020 Jan 10	Penumbral	1.07270
149	2020 Jul 05	Penumbral	−1.36387
Last set	2016 Sep 16				Last set	2016 Mar 23
Next set	2020 Jun 05				Next set	2020 Nov 30

It is part of Saros cycle 134.

A lunar eclipse will be preceded and followed by solar eclipses by 9 years and 5.5 days (a half saros).^[12] This lunar eclipse is related to two annular solar eclipses of Solar Saros 141.

15 January 2010	26 January 2028

Penumbral Magnitude = 2.16972 (216.972%)

Umbral Magnitude = 1.19657 (119.657%)

Gamma = 0.36842 (36.945%)

Epsilon = 0.3763° (0°22’34.68”)

Greatest Eclipse = 2019 Jan 21 at 05:12:18.0 UTC

Ecliptic Opposition = 2019 Jan 21 at 05:16:04.9 UTC

Equatorial Opposition = 2019 Jan 21 at 05:07:42.5 UTC

Sun’s Equatorial Right Ascension = 20.205h

Sun’s Equatorial Declination = -19.96°

Sun’s Apparent Diameter = 1950.4 arcseconds

Sun’s Equatorial Horizontal Parallax = 17.8 arcseconds

Moon’s Equatorial Right Ascension = 8.208h

Moon’s Equatorial Declination = +20.34°

Moon’s Apparent Diameter = 2004.2 arcseconds

Moon’s Equatorial Horizontal Parallax = 7355.8 arcseconds

Earth’s Shadow’s Equatorial Right Ascension = 8.205h

Earth’s Shadow’s Equatorial Declination = +19.96°

Earth’s Penumbral Shadow Diameter = 9424.8 arcseconds

Earth’s Umbral Shadow Diameter = 5523.84 arcseconds

Saros = 134 (27 of 73)

Orbital Node = Ascending Node

Moon’s Distance = 357,718 km (222,276 mi)

• List of lunar eclipses and List of 21st-century lunar eclipses

• 2019 Jan 21 chart: Eclipse Predictions by Fred Espenak, NASA/GSFC
• Hermit eclipse: 2019-01-21
• Eclipse information from skyandtelescope.com, including timing in different time zones