This is just a short note on the basic mechanics of it.

There’s a Penumbral Lunar Eclipse at 15+ Capricorn tomorrow, exact at 9:38:37 UT. That’s approx. 10:39 a.m. in the UK and 5:39 a.m. in New York. All other time zones are shown here.

The corresponding Capricorn Full Moon is nearly 20 minutes earlier at 9:21 UT. The reasons for the time gap between the lunation and the eclipse are explained here. Generally, the less exact an eclipse is, the bigger the time difference.

Penumbral eclipses are the least exact type of eclipse; they’re often barely visible, and as NASA puts it here:

July’s penumbral eclipse is only of academic interest since the magnitude is just 0.156. Although the Moon will be above the horizon from most of Canada (Figure 4), the eclipse is so minor as to be completely invisible to the naked eye.

In tomorrow’s eclipse, the Moon will just clip the penumbra of the Earth’s shadow, as shown in Figure 4 above.

The last lunar eclipse in this exact degree (15+ Capricorn) was exactly 315 years ago on July 7th 1694 (see list of lunar eclipses from 1690-2009 here).

A minor planet chart for the eclipse is here. The eclipsed Moon is conjunct asteroid Arachne, and the Sun is conjunct asteroid Bacchus. The eclipse trines Saturn/Ceres in Virgo, and the centaur Asbolus in Taurus. It also squares Haumea (dwarf planet) and Rhadamanthus (TNO) in Libra, and sextiles the largest centaur planet Chariklo, and asteroid Hidalgo, in Scorpio.

For the astrology of the Total Solar Eclipse in Leo tomorrow, and general inspiration, please see this new article by Eric Francis.

The New Moon is at 10:12:34 UT tomorrow at 9° Leo 31′49″ (minor planet chart here). The time of Maximum Eclipse, i.e., the time the Moon’s shadow comes closest to aligning with the centre of the Earth, is a few minutes later at 10:21:09 UT. The Moon then goes on to occult nearby Mercury at 15:36:11 UT (12° Leo 52′55″).

This eclipse is conjunct Mercury, square Asbolus and Vesta in Taurus, and opposite Nessus in Aquarius. Please also see Kirsti’s article here for more on those.

Full details of the path of the Moon’s shadow, and when and where the eclipse will be visible, are here, and there will be a live webcast here.

Gorgeous graphic right: Alys’s Universe by Alys, my favourite artist.