March 1997 lunar eclipse

A partial lunar eclipse took place on March 24, 1997, the first of two lunar eclipses in 1997.

This partial lunar eclipse was nearly total; however, it occurred 3 days after the lunar apogee, so the umbral shadow is smaller.

This is the 29th member of Lunar Saros 132, and the last of the first set of partial eclipses. The next event is the April 2015 lunar eclipse, which is the first of 12 total eclipses.

This eclipse was completely visible from North and South America, and visible setting over Western Europe and Africa.

This is the third of four lunar year eclipses at the descending node of the moon's orbit.

The lunar year series repeats after 12 lunations or 354 days (Shifting back about 10 days in sequential years). Because of the date shift, the Earth's shadow will be about 11 degrees west in sequential events.

Lunar saros series 132, repeating every 18 years and 11 days, has a total of 71 lunar eclipse events including 12 total lunar eclipses.

There are 11 series events between 1901 and 2100, grouped into threes (called an exeligmos), each column with approximately the same viewing longitude on earth.

The inex series repeats eclipses 20 days short of 29 years, repeating on average every 10571.95 days. This period is equal to 358 lunations (synodic months) and 388.5 draconic months. Saros series increment by one on successive Inex events and repeat at alternate ascending and descending lunar nodes.

This period is 383.6734 anomalistic months (the period of the Moon's elliptical orbital precession). Despite the average 0.05 time-of-day shift between subsequent events, the variation of the Moon in its elliptical orbit at each event causes the actual eclipse time to vary significantly.

Partial lunar eclipse at 5:00 UT

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