The eclipse was completely visible over east Africa, eastern Europe, and Asia, seen rising over northeastern North America, eastern South America, western Europe and west and central Africa and setting over Australia, northwestern North America, and the western and central Pacific Ocean.3
Shown below is a table displaying details about this particular solar eclipse. It describes various parameters pertaining to this eclipse.4
See also: Eclipse cycle
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.5
The lunar eclipses on June 27, 1991 (penumbral) and December 21, 1991 (partial) occur in the next lunar year eclipse set.
This eclipse is a part of Saros series 133, repeating every 18 years, 11 days, and containing 71 events. The series started with a penumbral lunar eclipse on May 13, 1557. It contains partial eclipses from August 7, 1683 through December 17, 1899; total eclipses from December 28, 1917 through August 3, 2278; and a second set of partial eclipses from August 14, 2296 through March 11, 2639. The series ends at member 71 as a penumbral eclipse on June 29, 2819.
The longest duration of totality will be produced by member 35 at 101 minutes, 41 seconds on May 30, 2170. All eclipses in this series occur at the Moon’s descending node of orbit.6
Eclipses are tabulated in three columns; every third eclipse in the same column is one exeligmos apart, so they all cast shadows over approximately the same parts of the Earth.
This eclipse is a part of a tritos cycle, repeating at alternating nodes every 135 synodic months (≈ 3986.63 days, or 11 years minus 1 month). Their appearance and longitude are irregular due to a lack of synchronization with the anomalistic month (period of perigee), but groupings of 3 tritos cycles (≈ 33 years minus 3 months) come close (≈ 434.044 anomalistic months), so eclipses are similar in these groupings.
This eclipse is a part of the long period inex cycle, repeating at alternating nodes, every 358 synodic months (≈ 10,571.95 days, or 29 years minus 20 days). Their appearance and longitude are irregular due to a lack of synchronization with the anomalistic month (period of perigee). However, groupings of 3 inex cycles (≈ 87 years minus 2 months) comes close (≈ 1,151.02 anomalistic months), so eclipses are similar in these groupings.
A lunar eclipse will be preceded and followed by solar eclipses by 9 years and 5.5 days (a half saros).8 This lunar eclipse is related to two annular solar eclipses of Solar Saros 140.
"February 9–10, 1990 Total Lunar Eclipse (Blood Moon)". timeanddate. Retrieved 7 January 2025. https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/lunar/1990-february-9 ↩
"Moon Distances for London, United Kingdom, England". timeanddate. Retrieved 7 January 2025. https://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/moon/distance.html?year=1990&n=136 ↩
"Total Lunar Eclipse of 1990 Feb 09" (PDF). NASA. Retrieved 7 January 2025. https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/LEplot/LEplot1951/LE1990Feb09T.pdf ↩
"Total Lunar Eclipse of 1990 Feb 09". EclipseWise.com. Retrieved 7 January 2025. https://eclipsewise.com/lunar/LEprime/1901-2000/LE1990Feb09Tprime.html ↩
van Gent, R.H. "Solar- and Lunar-Eclipse Predictions from Antiquity to the Present". A Catalogue of Eclipse Cycles. Utrecht University. Retrieved 6 October 2018. http://www.staff.science.uu.nl/~gent0113/eclipse/eclipsecycles.htm#Sar%20%28Half%20Saros%29 ↩
"NASA - Catalog of Lunar Eclipses of Saros 133". eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov. https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/LEsaros/LEsaros133.html ↩
Listing of Eclipses of series 133 http://www.hermit.org/Eclipse/gen_stats.cgi?mode=query&page=full&qtype=type&body=L&saros=133 ↩
Mathematical Astronomy Morsels, Jean Meeus, p.110, Chapter 18, The half-saros ↩