May 5, 2023, Penumbral Eclipse Is First of Two 2023 Lunar Eclipses

Summary: May 5, 2023, penumbral eclipse is first of two 2023 lunar eclipses, both of which favor Africa, Antarctica, Asia and Europe and disfavor the Americas.

Earth's orientation, as viewed from the moon's center during the Friday, May 5, 2023, penumbral lunar eclipse's greatest eclipse: SockPuppetForTomruen at English Wikipedia, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Friday, May 5, 2023, penumbral eclipse is the first of two 2023 lunar eclipses, with both favoring Africa, Antarctica, Asia and Europe and disfavoring North America and South America.

A precise positioning of Earth between Earth's moon and the sun at the full moon phase may create a lunar eclipse with visibility for half of Earth. A penumbral lunar eclipse ensues from the moon's passage through the light part, known as the penumbra (Latin: paene, “almost” + umbra, “shadow”), of Earth's tri-parted shadow. "The Moon dims so slightly that it can be difficult to notice," according to "Lunar Eclipses" on NASA Science's Earth's Moon website.

The Friday, May 5, 2023, penumbral eclipse offers varying visibilities to five of Earth's seven continents. Only Australia experiences all-visibility of the first lunar eclipse in 2023. North America and South America are excluded from the May penumbral lunar eclipse's visibility range.

Varying visibilities of the Friday, May 5, 2023, penumbral lunar eclipse are available to all five of Earth's oceans. The Arctic Ocean qualifies as the ocean with the smallest visibility range of May's penumbral eclipse. As extensions of the Arctic Ocean, the Barents, Kara and Laptev seas along northwestern, northern and northeastern coastal Russia, respectively, mark the northernmost extent of the penumbral eclipse's visibility range.

The Friday, May 5, 2023, penumbral lunar eclipse has a duration of 4 hours 17 minutes 31 seconds, according to eclipse predictions by retired NASA astrophysicist Fred Espenak on NASA's Eclipse Web Site. May's penumbral eclipse begins at 15:14:10 Universal Time (6:14 p.m. Eastern Africa Time; 8:44 p.m. India Standard Time; 10:14 p.m. Western Indonesia Time [Waktu Indonesia Barat] and Novosibirsk Time; and 11:14 p.m. Australian Western Standard Time, China Standard Time and Casey Time [Casey Station, Antarctica]). The penumbral eclipse ends Friday at 19:31:41 UT (10:31 p.m. EAT; Saturday, May 6, at 1:01 a.m. IST, 2:31 a.m. WIB and NOVT and at 3:31 a.m. AWST, CST and CAST).

Greatest eclipse occurs as 17:22:51.7 UT (8:22 p.m. EAT and 10:52 p.m. IST; Saturday, May 6, at 12:22 a.m. WIB and NOVT and at 1:22 a.m. AWST, CST and CAST). Greatest eclipse indicates the instant of the moon’s closest passage to the axis of Earth’s shadow.

Greatest eclipse takes place in the southeastern Indian Ocean, northwest of Perth, Western Australia state, southwestern Australia; southwest of Yogyakarta, south central Java, Indonesian archipelago, maritime southeast Asia. The Australian Indian Ocean Territory of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands lies to the northwest as the nearest neighbor to the greatest eclipse's location.

The coordinates for greatest eclipse are specified as 17 degrees 14.5 minutes south latitude, 098 degrees 03.0 minutes east longitude, according to Fred Espenak's predictions in "Eclipse Contacts: Penumbral Lunar Eclipse of 2023 May 05" on his EclipseWise website. The greatest eclipse occurs at 17:22:53.5 UT1 (17:24:04.3 Terrestrial Dynamical Time), according to the EclipseWise website.

The Friday, May 5, 2023, penumbral lunar eclipse numbers as the second eclipse in the quartet of eclipses in 2023. As the predecessor of May's lunar eclipse, the rare hybrid solar eclipse of Thursday, April 20, opened the year's eclipse lineup. April's solar eclipse restricted its hybrid phase to slices of Australia, Timor Leste and Indonesia New Guinea and stretched northward to East Asia and southward to New Zealand and Antarctica in its partial phase.

May's lunar eclipse sandwiches between the year's first and second solar eclipses. The annular solar eclipse of Saturday, Oct. 14, 2023, numbers as the year's second of two solar eclipses and as the third of the year's quartet of eclipses. October's solar eclipse bestows visibility upon most of North America and South America.

A partial lunar eclipse on Saturday, Oct. 28, 2023, appears as the second of the year's two lunar eclipses. October's lunar eclipse favors most of Africa, Asia and Europe with all-eclipse visibility. The October lunar eclipse closes the year's lineup as the fourth and last eclipse in 2023.

Friday, May 8, 2023, penumbral lunar eclipse details: Eclipse Predictions by Fred Espenak, NASA GSFC Emeritus, via NASA Eclipse Web Site

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Earth's orientation, as viewed from the moon's center during the Friday, May 5, 2023, penumbral lunar eclipse's greatest eclipse: SockPuppetForTomruen at English Wikipedia, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lunar_eclipse_from_moon-2023May05.png

Friday, May 8, 2023, penumbral lunar eclipse details: Eclipse Predictions by Fred Espenak, NASA GSFC Emeritus, via NASA Eclipse Web Site @ https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/LEplot/LEplot2001/LE2023May05N.pdf

For further information:

Espenak, Fred. "Key to Figures of Lunar Eclipses." EclipseWise > Lunar Eclipses > Recent and Upcoming Lunar Eclipses -- Decade Tables of Lunar Eclipses: 2021-2030 > Lunar Eclipses: 2021-2030 > Table of Lunar Eclipses: 2021 through 2030 > Penumbral Lunar Eclipse 2023 May 05.
Available via EclipseWise @ https://eclipsewise.com/lunar/LEhelp/LEpingkey.html

Espenak, Fred. "Penumbral Lunar Eclipse of 2023 May 05." EclipseWise > Lunar Eclipses > Recent and Upcoming Lunar Eclipses -- Decade Tables of Lunar Eclipses: 2021-2030 > Lunar Eclipses: 2021-2030 > Table of Lunar Eclipses: 2021 through 2030.
Available via EclipseWise @ https://eclipsewise.com/lunar/LEprime/2001-2100/LE2023May05Nprime.html

Espenak, Fred. "Penumbral Lunar Eclipse of 2023 May 5." NASA Eclipse Web Site > Lunar Eclipses > Lunar Eclipses: Past and Future 2021-2030 > Lunar Eclipses: 2021-2030.
Available via NASA Eclipse Web Site @ https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/LEplot/LEplot2001/LE2023May05N.pdf

Espenak, Fred. "Visual Appearance of Lunar Eclipses." NASA Eclipse Web Site > Lunar Eclipses > Lunar Eclipses -- Special Interest.
Available via NASA Eclipse Web Site @ https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/LEcat5/appearance.html

Jones, Andrea; Caela Barry; and Tracy Vogel. "Eclipses." NASA Earth's Moon > Moon in Motion.
Available via NASA Earth's Moon @ https://moon.nasa.gov/moon-in-motion/eclipses/

Marriner, Derdriu. "April 20, 2023, Hybrid Solar Eclipse Belongs to Saros Series 129." Earth and Space News. Wednesday, April 19, 2023.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2023/04/april-20-2023-hybrid-solar-eclipse.html

Marriner, Derdriu. "April 20 Rare Hybrid Solar Eclipse Is First of Two 2023 Solar Eclipses." Earth and Space News. Wednesday, April 12, 2023.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2023/04/april-20-rare-hybrid-solar-eclipse-is.html

Marriner, Derdriu. "February 2017 Penumbral Lunar Eclipse Over Every Continent Except Australia." Earth and Space News. Earth and Space News. Wednesday, February 1, 2017.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2017/02/february-2017-penumbral-lunar-eclipse.html

Marriner, Derdriu. "March 23 Penumbral Lunar Eclipse Bypasses Africa and Europe." Earth and Space News. Tuesday, March 22, 2016.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2016/03/march-23-penumbral-lunar-eclipse.html

Marriner, Derdriu. "Penumbral Lunar Eclipse Sept. 16 Is Last of Three 2016 Lunar Eclipses." Earth and Space News. Wednesday, September 14, 2016.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2016/09/penumbral-lunar-eclipse-sept16-is-last.html

Marriner, Derdriu. "Second of Three 2013 Lunar Eclipses Occurs May 25 as Penumbral Eclipse." Earth and Space News. Wednesday, May 15, 2013.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2013/05/second-of-three-2013-lunar-eclipses.html

Marriner, Derdriu. "Second of Two 2013 Penumbral Lunar Eclipses Happens Friday, Oct. 18." Earth and Space News. Wednesday, October 9, 2013.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2013/10/second-of-two-2013-penumbral-lunar.html

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