April 1950 lunar eclipse

A total lunar eclipse took place on Sunday, April 2, 1950. This was the first total lunar eclipse of Saros cycle 131.

Total Lunar Eclipse April 2, 1950
(No photo)
The moon passes west to east (right to left) across the Earth's umbral shadow, shown in hourly intervals.
Series	131 (30 of 72)
Gamma	-0.4598
Magnitude	1.0329
Duration (hr:mn:sc)
Totality	26:54
Partial	3:09:36
Penumbral	5:06:30
Contacts UTC
P1	18:11:19
U1	19:09:36
U2	20:31:07
Greatest	20:44:34
U3	20:58:01
U4	22:19:22
P4	23:17:49

Visibility

It was visible from Africa, Europe, Asia, Madagascar, the Philippines, and totality occurred as the Moon set from the western side of Australia.

Related lunar eclipses

Lunar year series

Lunar eclipse series sets from 1947–1951

Descending node				Ascending node
Saros	Date viewing	Type chart		Saros	Date viewing	Type chart
111	1948 Apr 23	Partial		116	1948 Oct 18	Penumbral
121	1949 Apr 13	Total		126	1949 Oct 07	Total
131	1950 Apr 02	Total		136	1950 Sep 26	Total
141	1951 Mar 23	Penumbral		146	1951 Sep 15	Penumbral

Saros series

Lunar Saros series 131, has 72 lunar eclipses. Solar Saros 138 interleaves with this lunar saros with an event occurring every 9 years 5 days alternating between each saros series.

This eclipse series began in AD 1427 with a partial eclipse at the southern edge of the Earth's shadow when the Moon was close to its descending node. Each successive Saros cycle, the Moon's orbital path is shifted northward with respect to the Earth's shadow, with the first total eclipse occurring in 1950. For the following 252 years, total eclipses occur, with the central eclipse being predicted to occur in 2078. The first partial eclipse after this is predicted to occur in the year 2220, and the final partial eclipse of the series will occur in 2707. The total lifetime of the lunar Saros series 131 is 1280 years. Solar Saros 138 interleaves with this lunar saros with an event occurring every 9 years 5 days alternating between each saros series.

Because of the ⅓ fraction of days in a Saros cycle, the visibility of each eclipse will differ for an observer at a given fixed locale. For the lunar Saros series 131, the first total eclipse of 1950 had its best visibility for viewers in Eastern Europe and the Middle East because mid-eclipse was at 20:44 UT. The following eclipse in the series occurred approximately 8 hours later in the day with mid-eclipse at 4:47 UT, and was best seen from North America and South America. The third total eclipse occurred approximately 8 hours later in the day than the second eclipse with mid-eclipse at 12:43 UT, and had its best visibility for viewers in the Western Pacific, East Asia, Australia and New Zealand. This cycle of visibility repeats from the initiation to termination of the series, with minor variations. Solar Saros 138 interleaves with this lunar saros with an event occurring every 9 years 5 days alternating between each saros series.

Lunar Saros series 131, repeating every 18 years and 11 days, has a total of 72 lunar eclipse events including 57 umbral lunar eclipses (42 partial lunar eclipses and 15 total lunar eclipses). Solar Saros 138 interleaves with this lunar saros with an event occurring every 9 years 5 days alternating between each saros series.

Greatest	First
The greatest eclipse of the series will occur on 2094 Jun 28, lasting 102 minutes.[1]	Penumbral	Partial	Total	Central
	1427 May 10	1553 July 25	1950 Apr 2	2022 May 16
	Last
	Central	Total	Partial	Penumbral
	2148 Jul 31	2202 Sep 3	2563 Apr 9	2707 Jul 7

1901–2100

1914 Mar 12		1932 Mar 22		1950 Apr 2
1968 Apr 13		1986 Apr 24		2004 May 4
2022 May 16		2040 May 26		2058 Jun 6
2076 Jun 17		2094 Jun 28

The next occurrence was on April 13, 1968. The previous occurrence was March 22, 1932.

See also

• List of lunar eclipses
• List of 20th-century lunar eclipses

Notes

1. Listing of Eclipses of cycle 131

External links

• 1950 Apr 02 chart Eclipse Predictions by Fred Espenak, NASA/GSFC