Total Lunar Eclipse on December 10, 2011

A total lunar eclipse on December 10, 2011, will be the final eclipse of the year. This will be second of two lunar eclipses in 2011.

Find out when the moon will be visible

Can I see the eclipse?

The December 10 lunar eclipse will be seen from Alaska, northern Canada, Australia, New Zealand, central Asia and eastern Asia. Viewers in most of North America and Hawaii will see the moonset still in eclipse.

Central and eastern Asia is where the eclipse can be best viewed and photographed.

People on the west coast of the United States and Canada will see the beginning of totality just as the moon disappears below the western horizon. Viewers on the east coast will not see the start of the umbral eclipse before moonset.

When will it occur?

A total lunar eclipse appears as a red moon.

©iStockphoto.com/Matthew Meier

The eclipse’s total phase lasts for 51 minutes. It starts at at 11:33:36 Universal Time (UT), with totality starting at 14:06:16 UT.

The point of the greatest eclipse occurs at 14:31:49 UT. The umbral eclipse magnitude will reach 1.11 at this point.

Totality ends at 14:57:24 UT, and the entire eclipse finally ends at 17:29:57 UT.

Maps: Who can see the Eclipse?

Time of start of the partial eclipse:	Time of start of the total eclipse:
Time of the end of the total eclipse:	Time of the end of the partial eclipse:

Eclipses in 2011

The total lunar eclipse on December 10, 2011 is one of six eclipses that occur in 2011. The full list of eclipses in 2011 includes:

• A partial solar eclipse on January 4.
• A partial solar eclipse on June 1.
• A total lunar eclipse on June 15.
• A partial solar eclipse on July 1.
• A partial solar eclipse on November 25.

Find out where and when the eclipses in 2012 will be.

Note: Universal Time (UT) is a timescale based on the Earth’s rotation, usually less than a second behind Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Eclipse information courtesy of Fred Espenak, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, and P. Harrington, author of Eclipse! The What, Where, When, Why & How Guide to Watching Solar and Lunar Eclipses.