# Questions tagged [solar-eclipse]

Questions about the complete or partial blocking of the sun by the moon.

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### Was the Sun's gravitational lensing observed in other solar eclipses than the one in 1919?

In 1919 the gravitational lensing by the Sun has been observed during a total solar eclipse. Did someone observe the lensing in any other total eclipses? Last year there was a total eclipse in Chile ...
64 views

### Do all total solar eclipses have the ring of fire when observed from ground?

I was recording the phenomenon and then I soon realised that the ring of fire don't dissappear, is it because of the apparent size of the moon and sun as well as the relative distance so that every ...
20 views

### How do we differentiate an eclipse, transit and occultation? [duplicate]

Different online resources seems to be confusing in this respect. What actually differentiate an eclipse from transit and occultation? The involvement of shadows, relative apparent sizes of the ...
380 views

### Is it possible to see mercury transit “clearly” by the naked eye?

I don't have a telescope but I'm interested in seeing events like eclipses and transits. I'll use the atmosphere as my big natural lens. So I'll watch the upcoming mercury transit at the sunset time ...
6k views

### Is it possible that the shadow of The Moon is a single dot during solar eclipse?

During a solar eclipse The Moon covers The Sun on some places on the Earth. Now the focal point is a bit above the Earth so the shadow area is about 160 miles. In history The Moon was a bit closer to ...
185 views

### When did the first annular eclipse happen?

A few hundreds of millions of years ago, the moon was closer to the Earth than it is today and hence was of a bigger apparent size. This made every solar eclipse either total or partial. Over the ...
111 views

### Why can't we observe a solar eclipse and the preceding/following lunar eclipse from the same place?

Lunar and solar eclipses go in tandem so the two often happens two weeks apart. However I noticed if there is a solar eclipse in my area then the preceding/following lunar eclipse is not visible from ...
133 views

### evaluate solar eclipse Besselian elements? [closed]

I found this NASA website which says that to predict eclipse, we should solve the Besselian elements ..what does this mean, how can I solve for Besselian elements? Is there a numerical method? I need ...
100 views

### Stellarium software with DE431 for eclipse 10000 yrs ago

Hi I am a novice in the field of astronomy. I want to find out the dates for lunar and solar eclipse 9000-11000 yrs ago. I found out that Stellarium is based on VSOP87 which is recommended for 4000 ...
134 views

### How to properly observe Solar Total Eclipse in 2019?

I live in South America and I'm willing to travel to Chile in July 2019 to observe (in a curious way, not professional) the Solar Total Eclipse. According to my research, one of the best cities to ...
143 views

### Why is only a narrow chunk of sky darkened in this amazing Curiosity solar eclipse GIF from Mars?

I found three NASA JPL images in the sequence PIA23133, PIA23134, and PIA23135. They were taken by the Curiosity Rover on Mars and show solar eclipses by Mars' two moons. Details of these images are ...
46 views

### Was NASA's 2007 attempt to see helions during a solar eclipse successful? What instruments were used?

This answer about Sun-grazing comets led me eventually to Wikipedia's Helion (meteoroid), which has a one-sentence long article: A Helion meteoroid is a meteoroid that arrives from the approximate ...
34 views

### Last possible total solar elipse in the Earth's history [duplicate]

So the Moon is drifting away from Earth by 3.8 cm a year due to tidal interactions. With the Moon slowly receding from Earth, there will come a time when it no longer has sufficient angular size to ...
108 views

### Are there pictures from a solar eclipse of the earth taken from a moon landing unit or orbiter?

Did any moon landing vehicle or orbiter took pictures of a solar eclipse happening on the earth, i.e. the moon's shadow on the earth? (Alternatively from other spacecraft showing the whole globe). A ...
186 views

### Could a moon orbit an Earth size planet in such a way as to create a solar eclipse lasting for several weeks from start to finish?

Is it theoretically possible for a moon to orbit a planet (let us say Earth size, mass and solar distance) in such a way as to create a planet-wide solar eclipse lasting several weeks? These are my ...
235 views

### When will the last total solar eclipse occur?

Because the moon distance from earth grows, how long will it take, that it is no longer possible to see a total eclipse but only circular eclipses? And does it make a difference if you are on the ...
121 views

### What is the maximum possible separation between sun and moon in the earth sky for an eclipse to occur?

How do we calculate the maximum angular separation between sun and moon during: Solar Eclipse Lunar Eclipse
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### What is the relation between the saros (18 years, 11 days, 8 hours) and the period of lunar nodal precession (18.6 years)?

I am wondering. I am sure that they are related. How can we derive one from the other?
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### Solar series 142 and 147 started same year - series 147 and 152 will be ending same year. Why? Coincidence?

This question was left over from the last question I had, so I am asking it separately here: I have been looking into two solar eclipses (Saros series 147 and 152) that will both be occurring in 2021....
116 views

### What is a “semester series” for eclipse prediction? - Solar saros series 147 and 152

Yet again, I just stumbled across another baffling eclipse question (actually, two now). I was interested in two eclipses (Saros series 147 and 152) that will both be occurring in 2021. Each of these ...
107 views

### Solar and lunar eclipses — how rare

I was fortunate enough to see the solar eclipse in southern Illinois last year. The clouds were not friendly, but we did have one spectacular moment of perfect eclipse. It is an eerie sensation, and I ...
664 views

### How does an eclipse differ from an occultation?

A comment in response to this question suggests that an eclipse differs from an occultation in that the former casts a shadow while the latter doesn't. This isn't particularly satisfactory since ...
54 views

### Would an extremely bright star produce same kind of shadow band effect as seen in solar eclipses just before totality?

This answer explains that the shimmering patterns seen on surfaces at the moment before totality of a solar eclipse are called shadow bands, and that the phenomenon is closely related to the twinkling ...
179 views

### What is causing this strange shimmering pattern of light during a total solar eclipse?

Below this question was left a comment linking to the Smarter Every Day video Space Station Transiting 2017 ECLIPSE, My Brain Stopped Working - Smarter Every Day 175. At about ...
688 views

### Calculate eclipse days and duration of satellite

If a satellite is revolving in a GEO orbit, then what will be the eclipse duration for it? How to calculate when the satellite will enter the dark side of the Earth? Any formula or online tool would ...
140 views

### Are Saros series separated by “40” in numbering related in any way?

Can anyone help with this question? My question arose from an eclipse related observation that I made while looking into lunar Saros series 129. It is the Saros series number for the lunar eclipse ...
49 views

### The total number of solar eclipses in a century repeats roughly every 6th century

We know that on a longer time scale (millions of years) the orbits of planes are unstable and it is impossible to make predictions about eclipses millions of years into the future. But on a shorter ...
105 views

### What would cause large jumps in brightness during a solar eclipse?

This question on Physics SE about apparent brightness during a solar eclipse has a log-scale graph of light intensity versus time. Parts of it are the shape I'd expect: a nearly-smooth curve going ...
177 views

### Spacing (2422 days) between solar eclipses - unrelated saros numbers

I just made an observation that is very puzzling. The observation concerns total solar eclipses and their spacing in time. I know that the saros cycle dictates recurrence of same saros eclipses ...
70 views

### How often do partial solar eclipses of 90% of totality occur in same place?

I know that the mean interval between total eclipses in a single place is about 375 years, which is not surprising given the small band of area of the totality. However, the penumbra of the eclipse ...
183 views

### Is it possible that a satellite creates a forever eclipse? [closed]

So, to add a bit of context, I’m doing the NaNoWriMo challenge, which consists of writing a novel of 50k words in one month. My whole idea is based around the following question: What would happen if ...
783 views

### Eclipses with SkyField

I'm trying to compute solar eclipses for a long period of time, see Back-predicting solar eclipses Initially, I wanted at several points on Earth whether an eclipse was visible at some point in time. ...
283 views

### Mountains on the moon during solar eclipse?

I ask myself the reason of why the sun in not uniform on the edge of the moon at this moment of the eclipse (cf. picture) is not unifom is because of the mountains of the moon ? Or can it due to ...
141 views

### A real light source, or an artifact?

I was taking shots of the 2017 eclipse using my D7200 camera with a 1000 ND filter. As I was going through the pictures after downloading them to a pc, I noticed that there's what appears to be a tiny ...
397 views

### Dark enough to see stars during total solar eclipse?

I was fortunate enough to see totality during the eclipse of 2017 August 21. It did leave me wondering about the 1919 Eddington experiment, though. During totality, it only got dark enough to see a ...
68 views

### What prevents consequent eclipses? [duplicate]

I know there are a number of parameters that determine the occurrence of a solar or lunar eclipse. The number should be 18; 6 degrees of freedom for 3 rigid bodies. But can't figure out why eclipses ...
73 views

### How to tell between annular and total eclipse (directly)?

An annular eclipse is similar to total eclipse except our Moon "apparently" appears smaller than the Sun, my question is since in both cases there will be a glowing ring forming... so how to tell them ...
149 views

### Why don't multiple eclipses happen over the course of a few days?

From my understanding over the course of the seasons the moon and sun rise at varying locations. Though the day to day differences are no noticeable, to me at least. For instance, in the summer, the ...
141 views

### Long term temperature effects of an eclipse

I was surprised to see a very measurable difference in temperature at my home during the recent solar eclipse. The temperature was about 93 degrees fahrenheit but dropped to around 86 degrees. It ...
106 views

### On the day of total solar eclipse why was early sunrise observed in India?

I am a middle school teacher from India(UTC+5:30). On August 21, 2017 morning at (17.385044, 78.486671) we observed an unusually early sunrise. It felt like its 7'O clock in the morning at 5:45 AM. ...
133 views

### Why do some solar eclipses' umbra cross arctic/antarctic regions?

The ecliptic (Earth's orbital plane) is inclined 23.4 degrees. This is the same as Earth's axial tilt. The Moon's orbit is inclined 5.145 degrees to the ecliptic. Therefore, the maximum latitude ...
155 views

### Does the sky darken proportionally during a partial solar eclipse?

During a solar eclipse, some of the visible area of the sun is obscured by the moon. The exact percentage varies with time and with the observer's location. My question is, does the sky darken by ...
15k views

### Why is it okay to watch a sunset but not an eclipse?

People watch sunsets all the time. You don't see people using special "sunset glasses". Yet with an eclipse, warnings are posted everywhere not to view it without special glasses. Why is this?
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### Why didn't it seem darker outside with 66% of the sun covered by the moon? [duplicate]

I live in Austin, TX where the eclipse on August 21, 2017 reached its maximum point with ~66% of the sun covered by the moon. Why didn't it seem any darker than a normal time with 0% eclipse?
127 views

### How much of the sun needs to be blocked in order to see a noticeable drop in brightness

I live in NYC and just experienced the eclipse. What fascinated me the most was that despite the fact that the sun was about 70% blocked, the area was not noticeably dimmer. If the news wasn't saying ...
202 views

### Eclipse Visible Light Not Dark as Expected

I live in a place where we weren't on the path of totality but were in the 90% range. I was expecting it to be a lot darker than it ended up being. What does it mean to be in the 90% range on this map?...
162 views

### Can Astronauts Aboard ISS See the Shadow of The Moon on The Earth During an Eclipse?

I was wondering if the astronauts on the ISS are able to see the shadow from the moon on the earth at all during the eclipse.
112 views

### 2017 solar eclipse report

I'm writing a report about the solar eclipse happening over north America and was wondering why looking at a solar eclipse is worse than looking at the sun regularly. In addition what alternate ...