| Total Lunar Eclipse September 16, 1997 | |
|---|---|
 The Moon passes west to east (right to left) across the Earth's umbral shadow, shown in hourly intervals. | |
| Series | 137 (27 of 81) |
| Gamma | -0.3768 |
| Magnitude | 1.1909 |
| Duration (hr:mn:sc) | |
| Totality | 1:11:30 |
| Partial | 3:16:27 |
| Penumbral | 5:08:14 |
| Contacts | |
| P1 | 16:12:32 UTC |
| U1 | 17:08:25 UTC |
| U2 | 18:15:54 UTC |
| Greatest | 18:46:39 UTC |
| U3 | 19:17:24 UTC |
| U4 | 20:24:52 UTC |
| P4 | 21:20:46 UTC |
A total lunar eclipse took place at the Moon's descending node of the orbit on Tuesday, September 16, 1997, the second of two lunar eclipses in 1997. A shallow total eclipse saw the Moon in relative darkness for 1 hour, 1 minute and 30.8 seconds. The Moon was 19.094% of its diameter into the Earth's umbral shadow, and should have been significantly darkened. The partial eclipse lasted for 3 hours, 16 minutes and 28.2 seconds in total. The penumbral eclipse lasted for 5 hours, 8 minutes and 20.1 seconds. The partial eclipse lasted for 3 hours, 16 minutes and 28.2 seconds. The total eclipse lasted for 1 hour, 1 minute and 30.8 seconds. Maximum eclipse was at 18:46:39.1 UTC. The moon's apparent diameter was extremely large (6.3% larger than average) because occurred only 3 hours and 21 minutes past perigee. The Moon was only 356,986 km (221,820 mi) of the Earth at greatest eclipse.
This eclipse was the fourth and last of an almost tetrad (that occurred when there were 4 consecutive lunar eclipses that had an umbral eclipse magnitude of 0.9 or greater). The others were 04 Apr 1996 (T), 27 Sep 1996 (T) and 24 Mar 1997 (P).
This eclipse was the 25th eclipse in Saros series 137 (lunar eclipse), descending node. The previous event was on Thursday, September 6, 1979. The next event was on Monday, September 28, 2015.