Fred Espenak

21st Century Canon of Lunar Eclipses - Black and White Edition Fred Espenak

The 21st Century Canon of Lunar Eclipses - Black and White Edition contains diagrams, maps, and data for all 228 lunar eclipses occurring during the 100-year period from 2001 through 2100. The eclipse predictions are based on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's DE430 - a computer ephemeris used for calculating high precision coordinates of the Sun and Moon for hundreds of years into the past and future.

Section 1 of the 21st Century Canon presents basic fundamentals including eclipse classification, the visual appearance of each type of eclipse, and the Danjon Scale of eclipse brightness. Section 2 discusses the eclipse predictions, the major contact definitions, the enlargement of Earth's shadows, coordinates of the Sun and Moon, and Delta T. Section 3 looks at the frequency of lunar eclipses, extremes in penumbral and umbral eclipse magnitudes, durations of penumbral, partial and total eclipses, and eclipse seasons. A concise explanation of the data contained in the lunar eclipse catalog (Appendix A) appears in Section 4 while Section 5 offers a complete description of the diagrams and maps presented for each lunar eclipse in Appendices B and C.

The primary content of the 21st Century Canon of Lunar Eclipses resides in the three appendices. Appendix A is a comprehensive catalog listing the essential characteristics of each eclipse. These include the calendar date and time of greatest eclipse, Delta T, lunation number, Saros series number, gamma, penumbral and umbral eclipse magnitudes, durations of the penumbral, partial and total phases, and the geographic location where the Moon appears at the zenith at greatest eclipse. Appendix B is an atlas of figures depicting the path of the Moon through Earth's shadows and maps identifying the geographic regions of visibility of each eclipse. The 228 figures are arranged twelve to a page. Other data on each figure include the eclipse type, calendar date and time of greatest eclipse, Saros series number, lunar node, Delta T, gamma, eclipse magnitudes, and phase durations. Appendix C zeros in on the 112 lunar eclipses from 2021 to 2070 with a detailed full-page path diagram and map of each eclipse.



The 21st Century Canon of Lunar Eclipses is the expanded successor to the NASA publication Fifty Year Canon of Lunar Eclipses.