Penumbral Lunar Eclipse of -1279 Apr 18 (1280 Apr 18 BCE)
Fred Espenak
Introduction
The
Penumbral Lunar Eclipse of -1279 Apr 18 (1280 Apr 18 BCE)
is visible from the geographic regions shown on the map to the right.
The diagram above the map depicts the Moon's path with respect to Earth's umbral and penumbral shadows.
Click on the figure to enlarge it.
For an explanation of the features appearing in the figure,
see Key to Lunar Eclipse Figures.
The instant of greatest eclipse takes place on -1279 Apr 18 at 20:06:33 TD (11:37:32 UT1).
This is 1.0 days before the Moon reaches perigee.
During the eclipse, the Moon is in the constellation Scorpius.
The synodic month in which the eclipse takes place has a Brown Lunation Number of -39600.
The eclipse belongs to Saros 40 and is number 7 of 74 eclipses in the series.
All eclipses in this series occur at the Moon’s ascending node.
The Moon moves southward with respect to the node with each succeeding eclipse in the series and gamma decreases.
The penumbral lunar eclipse of -1279 Apr 18 is preceded two weeks earlier by a annular solar eclipse on -1279 Apr 03.
Another lunar eclipse occurs one synodic month before the -1279 Apr 18 eclipse. It is the penumbral lunar eclipse of -1279 Mar 20.
These eclipses all take place during a single eclipse season.
The eclipse predictions are given in both Terrestrial Dynamical Time (TD)
and Universal Time (UT1).
The parameter ΔT is used to convert between these two times (i.e., UT1 = TD - ΔT).
ΔT has a value of
30540.6
seconds for this eclipse.
The uncertainty in ΔT is
1263.7 seconds corresponding to a standard error in longitude of the eclipse visibility zones of 5.28°.
The following links provide maps and data for the eclipse.
The tables below contain detailed predictions and additional information on the
Penumbral Lunar Eclipse of -1279 Apr 18
.
Polynomial Besselian Elements: Penumbral Lunar Eclipse of -1279 Apr 18
| Polynomial Besselian Elements |
| -1279 Apr 18 at 20:00:00.0 TD (=t0) |
| n |
x |
y |
d |
f1 |
f2 |
f3 |
| 0 | 0.32604 | 1.24298 | 0.1114 | 1.29110 | 0.76599 | 0.27683 |
| 1 | 0.56050 | -0.17734 | 0.0003 | 0.00022 | 0.00022 | 0.00006 |
| 2 | 0.00012 | -0.00008 | -0.0000 | -0.00000 | -0.00000 | -0.00000 |
| 3 | -0.00001 | 0.00000 | - | - | - | - |
At time t1 (decimal hours), each besselian element is evaluated by:
x = x0 + x1*t + x2*t2 + x3*t3 (or x = Σ [xn*tn]; n = 0 to 3)
where: t = t1 - t0 (decimal hours) and t0 = 20.000
Explanation of Besselian Elements
Calendar
The Gregorian calendar (also called the Western calendar) is internationally the most widely used civil calendar.
It is named for Pope Gregory XIII, who introduced it in 1582.
On this website, the Gregorian calendar is used for all calendar dates from 1582 Oct 15 onwards.
Before that date, the Julian calendar is used.
For more information on this topic, see Calendar Dates.
The Julian calendar does not include the year 0.
Thus the year 1 BCE is followed by the year 1 CE (See: BCE/CE Dating Conventions).
This is awkward for arithmetic calculations.
Years in this catalog are numbered astronomically and include the year 0.
Historians should note there is a difference of one year between astronomical dates and BCE dates.
Thus, the astronomical year 0 corresponds to 1 BCE, and astronomical year -1 corresponds to 2 BCE, etc..
Eclipse Predictions
Predictions for the
Penumbral Lunar Eclipse of -1279 Apr 18
were generated using the
JPL DE406
solar and lunar ephemerides.
The lunar coordinates were calculated with respect to the Moon's Center of Mass.
The predictions are given in both Terrestrial Dynamical Time (TD)
and Universal Time (UT1).
The parameter ΔT is used to convert between these two times (i.e., UT1 = TD - ΔT).
ΔT has a value of
30540.6
seconds for this eclipse.
The uncertainty in ΔT is
1263.7 seconds corresponding to a standard error in longitude of the eclipse visibility zones of 5.28°.
Acknowledgments
Some of the content on this web site is based on the book Thousand Year Canon of Lunar Eclipses 1501 to 2500.
All eclipse calculations are by Fred Espenak, and he assumes full responsibility for their accuracy.
Permission is granted to reproduce this data when accompanied by an acknowledgment:
"Eclipse Predictions by Fred Espenak, www.EclipseWise.com"
The use of diagrams and maps is permitted provided that they are NOT altered (except for re-sizing) and the embedded credit line is NOT removed or covered.
