September 1978 lunar eclipse

A total lunar eclipse took place on Saturday, September 16, 1978, the second of two total lunar eclipses in 1978. The Moon was plunged into darkness for 1 hour, 18 minutes and 39 seconds, in a deep total eclipse which saw the Moon 32.683% of its diameter inside the Earth's umbral shadow. The visual effect of this depends on the state of the Earth's atmosphere, but the Moon may have been stained a deep red colour. The partial eclipse lasted 3 hours, 27 minutes and 11.6 seconds in total.^[1]

This is the 40th member of Lunar Saros 127. The previous event is the September 1960 lunar eclipse. The next event is the September 1996 lunar eclipse.

It was completely visible in east in South America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia, seen rising over east in South America and setting over the Pacific (west of International Date Line), on September 17, 1978 local time.

• A total lunar eclipse on Friday, 24 March 1978.
• A partial solar eclipse on Friday, 7 April 1978.
• A total lunar eclipse on Saturday, 16 September 1978.
• A partial solar eclipse on Monday, 2 October 1978.

Lunar eclipse series sets from 1977–1980
Ascending node					Descending node
Saros	Date viewing	Type chart	Gamma		Saros	Date viewing	Type chart	Gamma
112	1977 Apr 04	Partial	−0.91483		117	1977 Sep 27	Penumbral	1.07682
122	1978 Mar 24	Total	−0.21402		127	1978 Sep 16	Total	0.29510
132	1979 Mar 13	Partial	0.52537		137	1979 Sep 06	Total	−0.43050
142	1980 Mar 01	Penumbral	1.22701		147	1980 Aug 26	Penumbral	−1.16082
Last set	1976 May 13				Last set	1976 Nov 06
Next set	1981 Jan 20				Next set	1980 Jul 27

The tritos series repeats 31 days short of 11 years at alternating nodes. Sequential events have incremental Saros cycle indices.

This series produces 23 total eclipses between June 22, 1880 and August 9, 2120.

Tritos eclipse series (subset 1901–2100)

Ascending node				Descending node
Saros	Date Viewing	Type chart		Saros	Date Viewing	Type chart
120	1902 Apr 22	Total		121	1913 Mar 22	Total
122	1924 Feb 20	Total		123	1935 Jan 19	Total
124	1945 Dec 19	Total		125	1956 Nov 18	Total
126	1967 Oct 18	Total		127	1978 Sep 16	Total
128	1989 Aug 17	Total		129	2000 Jul 16	Total
130	2011 Jun 15	Total		131	2022 May 16	Total
132	2033 Apr 14	Total		133	2044 Mar 13	Total
134	2055 Feb 11	Total		135	2066 Jan 11	Total
136	2076 Dec 10	Total		137	2087 Nov 10	Total
138	2098 Oct 10	Total

A lunar eclipse will be preceded and followed by solar eclipses by 9 years and 5.5 days (a half saros).^[2] This lunar eclipse is related to two annular solar eclipses of Solar Saros 134.

September 11, 1969	September 23, 1987

Lunar saros series 127, repeating every 18 years and 11 days, has a total of 72 lunar eclipse events including 54 umbral lunar eclipses (38 partial lunar eclipses and 16 total lunar eclipses). Solar Saros 134 interleaves with this lunar saros with an event occurring every 9 years 5 days alternating between each saros series.

1901–2100

1906 Aug 04		1924 Aug 14		1942 Aug 26
1960 Sep 05		1978 Sep 16		1996 Sep 27
2014 Oct 08		2032 Oct 18		2050 Oct 30
2068 Nov 09

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

• 1978 Sep 16 chart Eclipse Predictions by Fred Espenak, NASA/GSFC

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