A Lunar Penumbral Eclipse will take place from Friday 10 to Saturday 11 February. It will last 4 hours and 19 minutes.

Lunar eclipses are celestial phenomena visible from a wide geographical area. There are different types of them: the most impressive are the Total ones, in which the Moon is completely covered by the shadow of the Earth, taking a reddish hue; a little less spectacular are the Partial ones, which take place when the Moon enters only partly into the shadow of the Earth, and which are seen with a part of the disk darkened and the other one still illuminated; and the most subtle ones are the Penumbral Eclipses, in which only a slight darkening of the disk can be appreciated.

The Eclipse from this month will be a Penumbral Eclipse. The last Total Lunar Eclipse we could see occurred in September 2015, and the next one will not take place until 31 January 2018. However. in Catalonia we will not be able to see any Total Eclipse until the 27-28 July 2018.

Visibility

When a Penumbral Eclipse takes place. the Moon, instead of plunging into the dark inner core of the Earth's shadow (called the umbra), passes deeply into the Earth's dusky outer shadow, the penumbra. Among Penumbral Eclipses, this will be one of the less subtle ones and you will be able to easily perceive some darkening on the Moon's surface.

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