A total lunar eclipse will be visible to sky-watchers in the country in the late hours of June 15. “The lunar eclipse will be visible in India. It can be seen with naked eyes,” P. Iyamperumal, Executive Director, Tamil Nadu Science and Technology Centre, Chennai told PTI. “The total lunar eclipse, which will be visible in southern Asia, Africa and Australia, is the first of two lunar eclipses in 2011 and the third of all eclipses to occur throughout the year,” said Vijayakumar, a space enthusiast. The eclipse can be best viewed in the northernmost region of the ‘entire-eclipse zone’ in central Asia, as well as Eastern Europe and northeastern Africa. The moon will be completely covered by Earth’s shadow from 11.52 p.m. on June 15 to 2.32 a.m. on June 16.
"The eclipse can also be seen from Siberia, northern China, remote parts of Alaska and Canada, and Iceland," writes Fred Espenak of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, where the eclipse circumstances were calculated. "Greatest eclipse occurs at 21:16 Universal Time on June 1st. At that time, an eclipse of magnitude 0.601 will be visible from the Arctic coast of western Siberia as the midnight sun skirts the northern horizon." Not all places in the eclipse zone are in line for a midnight event. Espenak notes that Reykjavik, Iceland, will experience a 46% eclipse just before sunset--a nice way to end the day--while northern China gets its eclipse at sunrise. A table from NASA lists key times for major cities.
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