A total lunar eclipse will occur at the Moon’s descending node of orbit on Tuesday, August 18, 2054,[1] with an umbral magnitude of 1.3074. A lunar eclipse occurs when the Moon moves into the Earth's shadow, causing the Moon to be darkened. A total lunar eclipse occurs when the Moon's near side entirely passes into the Earth's umbral shadow. Unlike a solar eclipse, which can only be viewed from a relatively small area of the world, a lunar eclipse may be viewed from anywhere on the night side of Earth. A total lunar eclipse can last up to nearly two hours, while a total solar eclipse lasts only a few minutes at any given place, because the Moon's shadow is smaller. Occurring only about 2 hours after apogee (on August 18, 2054, at 6:20 UTC), the Moon's apparent diameter will be smaller.[2]
This eclipse is part of an eclipse season, a period, roughly every six months, when eclipses occur. Only two (or occasionally three) eclipse seasons occur each year, and each season lasts about 35 days and repeats just short of six months (173 days) later; thus two full eclipse seasons always occur each year. Either two or three eclipses happen each eclipse season. In the sequence below, each eclipse is separated by a fortnight. The first and last eclipse in this sequence is separated by one synodic month.
This eclipse is a member of a semester series. An eclipse in a semester series of lunar eclipses repeats approximately every 177 days and 4 hours (a semester) at alternating nodes of the Moon's orbit.[5]
Lunar saros series 129, repeating every 18 years and 11 days, containing 71 events, has 11 total lunar eclipses. The first total lunar eclipse of this series was on May 24, 1910, and last will be on September 8, 2090. The longest occurrence of this series was on July 16, 2000 when totality lasted 106 minutes and 24.6 seconds.
Greatest
First
The greatest eclipse of the series occurred on 2000 Jul 16, lasting 106 minutes.
A lunar eclipse will be preceded and followed by solar eclipses by 9 years and 5.5 days (a half saros).[6] This lunar eclipse is related to two total solar eclipses of Solar Saros 136.