A partial lunar eclipse occurred at the MoonâÂÂs ascending node of orbit on Sunday, April 12, 1903, with an umbral magnitude of 0.9677. A lunar eclipse occurs when the Moon moves into the Earth's shadow, causing the Moon to be darkened. A partial lunar eclipse occurs when one part of the Moon is in the Earth's umbra, while the other part is in the Earth's penumbra. 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. The Moon's apparent diameter was near the average diameter because it occurred 6.2 days after perigee (on April 5, 1903, at 18:45 UTC) and 7.1 days before apogee (on April 19, 1903, at 4:35 UTC).
This nearly total lunar eclipse of Lunar Saros 130 preceded the first total eclipse of the series on April 22, 1921.
It occurred on Easter Sunday (Gregorian only), for the first time since 1846.
The eclipse was completely visible over eastern South America, Africa, Europe, and Antarctica, seen rising over western South America and much of North America and setting over much of Asia and western Australia.
Shown below is a table displaying details about this particular solar eclipse. It describes various parameters pertaining to this eclipse.
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.
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.
The penumbral lunar eclipse on March 2, 1904 occurs in the next lunar year eclipse set.
A lunar eclipse will be preceded and followed by solar eclipses by 9 years and 5.5 days (a half saros). This lunar eclipse is related to two hybrid solar eclipses of Solar Saros 137.