Solar eclipse of November 11, 1863

Solar eclipse of November 11, 1863
Solar eclipse of November 11, 1863
	Map
Type of eclipse
Nature	Annular
Gamma	−0.876
Magnitude	0.9943
Maximum eclipse
Duration	22 s (0 min 22 s)
Coordinates	75°24′S 15°06′E / 75.4°S 15.1°E
Max. width of band	42 km (26 mi)
Times (UTC)
Greatest eclipse	8:09:03
References
Saros	121 (52 of 71)
Catalog # (SE5000)	9196

An annular solar eclipse occurred at the Moon's ascending node of orbit on Wednesday, November 11, 1863, with a magnitude of 0.9943. A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby totally or partly obscuring the image of the Sun for a viewer on Earth. An annular solar eclipse occurs when the Moon's apparent diameter is smaller than the Sun's, blocking most of the Sun's light and causing the Sun to look like an annulus (ring). An annular eclipse appears as a partial eclipse over a region of the Earth thousands of kilometres wide. Occurring about 3.7 days before perigee (on November 15, 1863, at 12:30 UTC), the Moon's apparent diameter was larger.^[1]

The path of annularity was visible from parts of Antarctica. A partial solar eclipse was also visible for parts of Southern Africa, Antarctica, and southern Australia.

Description

The eclipse took place in Africa including Namacqualand (then also South-West Africa, now Namibia), Bechuanaland (now Botswana) South Africa (which included the British colonies and the Boer states at the time), Basutoland (parts now Lesotho), Zululand (now part of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa) and portions of Swaziland. The rest took place in the South Atlantic up to hundreds of kilometers (or miles) offshore from South America except for Tierra del Fuego which was included and included the islands, the Indian Ocean, all of Antarctica which many areas had a 24-hour daylight that time, the southernmost areas of Australia along with Tasmania and the southernmost parts of the Pacific Ocean.

As the moon moved towards the left on Earth in Africa, at the peninsular portion, it was seen as it was moved towards the bottom right, then right then top as the axis spun at around the 71st parallel south.

The eclipse started at sunrise close to South America and finished at sunset in Australia, 70% at the Antarctic shores at the Indian Ocean.

It showed up to 30% obscuration in the area of Cape Town and Cape Agulhas up to 99% inside the maximum width of band. The greatest eclipse was in the middle of Antarctica east of the Prime Meridian at 75.4 S, 15.1 E at 8:09 UTC (9:09 AM local time) and lasted for 22 seconds, the maximum width of band was only 42 km (26 miles), the view around it was partly dark even inside the clouds.^[2]

The subsolar marking was east of Madagascar and close to the Mascarene Islands.

Eclipse details

Shown below are two tables displaying details about this particular solar eclipse. The first table outlines times at which the moon's penumbra or umbra attains the specific parameter, and the second table describes various other parameters pertaining to this eclipse.^[3]

November 11, 1863 Solar Eclipse Times
Event	Time (UTC)
First Penumbral External Contact	1863 November 11 at 05:50:20.4 UTC
First Umbral External Contact	1863 November 11 at 07:16:14.8 UTC
First Central Line	1863 November 11 at 07:17:07.6 UTC
Greatest Duration	1863 November 11 at 07:17:07.6 UTC
First Umbral Internal Contact	1863 November 11 at 07:18:01.0 UTC
Ecliptic Conjunction	1863 November 11 at 07:59:38.2 UTC
Greatest Eclipse	1863 November 11 at 08:09:02.9 UTC
Equatorial Conjunction	1863 November 11 at 08:26:28.2 UTC
Last Umbral Internal Contact	1863 November 11 at 08:59:54.9 UTC
Last Central Line	1863 November 11 at 09:00:45.6 UTC
Last Umbral External Contact	1863 November 11 at 09:01:35.7 UTC
Last Penumbral External Contact	1863 November 11 at 10:27:32.0 UTC

November 11, 1863 Solar Eclipse Parameters
Parameter	Value
Eclipse Magnitude	0.99433
Eclipse Obscuration	0.98868
Gamma	−0.87594
Sun Right Ascension	15h04m02.6s
Sun Declination	-17°20'12.6"
Sun Semi-Diameter	16'09.8"
Sun Equatorial Horizontal Parallax	08.9"
Moon Right Ascension	15h03m23.8s
Moon Declination	-18°10'30.9"
Moon Semi-Diameter	15'57.1"
Moon Equatorial Horizontal Parallax	0°58'32.5"
ΔT	6.8 s

Eclipse season

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.

Eclipse season of November 1863
November 11 Ascending node (new moon)	November 25 Descending node (full moon)

Annular solar eclipse Solar Saros 121	Partial lunar eclipse Lunar Saros 133

Related eclipses

Solar eclipses of 1862–1866

This eclipse is a member of a semester series. An eclipse in a semester series of solar eclipses repeats approximately every 177 days and 4 hours (a semester) at alternating nodes of the Moon's orbit.^[4]

The partial solar eclipses on June 27, 1862 and December 21, 1862 occur in the previous lunar year eclipse set, and the partial solar eclipse on March 16, 1866 occurs in the next lunar year eclipse set.

Solar eclipse series sets from 1862 to 1866
Ascending node			Descending node
Saros	Map	Gamma	Saros	Map	Gamma
111	November 21, 1862 Partial	−1.5052	116	May 17, 1863 Partial	1.0627
121	November 11, 1863 Annular	−0.8760	126	May 6, 1864 Hybrid	0.2622
131	October 30, 1864 Annular	−0.1816	136	April 25, 1865 Total	−0.4826
141	October 19, 1865 Annular	0.5366	146	April 15, 1866 Partial	−1.1846
151	October 8, 1866 Partial	1.2296

Saros 121

This eclipse is a part of Saros series 121, repeating every 18 years, 11 days, and containing 71 events. The series started with a partial solar eclipse on April 25, 944 AD. It contains total eclipses from July 10, 1070 through October 9, 1809; hybrid eclipses on October 20, 1827 and October 30, 1845; and annular eclipses from November 11, 1863 through February 28, 2044. The series ends at member 71 as a partial eclipse on June 7, 2206. Its 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.

The longest duration of totality was produced by member 39 at 6 minutes, 20 seconds on June 21, 1629, and the longest duration of annularity will be produced by member 62 at 2 minutes, 27 seconds on February 28, 2044. All eclipses in this series occur at the Moon’s ascending node of orbit.^[5]

Series members 49–70 occur between 1801 and 2200:
49	50	51
October 9, 1809	October 20, 1827	October 30, 1845
52	53	54
November 11, 1863	November 21, 1881	December 3, 1899
55	56	57
December 14, 1917	December 25, 1935	January 5, 1954
58	59	60
January 16, 1972	January 26, 1990	February 7, 2008
61	62	63
February 17, 2026	February 28, 2044	March 11, 2062
64	65	66
March 21, 2080	April 1, 2098	April 13, 2116
67	68	69
April 24, 2134	May 4, 2152	May 16, 2170
70
May 26, 2188

Metonic series

The metonic series repeats eclipses every 19 years (6939.69 days), lasting about 5 cycles. Eclipses occur in nearly the same calendar date. In addition, the octon subseries repeats 1/5 of that or every 3.8 years (1387.94 days). All eclipses in this table occur at the Moon's ascending node.

25 eclipse events between April 5, 1837 and June 17, 1928
April 5–6	January 22–23	November 10–11	August 28–30	June 17–18
107	109	111	113	115
April 5, 1837	January 22, 1841	November 10, 1844	August 28, 1848	June 17, 1852
117	119	121	123	125
April 5, 1856	January 23, 1860	November 11, 1863	August 29, 1867	June 18, 1871
127	129	131	133	135
April 6, 1875	January 22, 1879	November 10, 1882	August 29, 1886	June 17, 1890
137	139	141	143	145
April 6, 1894	January 22, 1898	November 11, 1901	August 30, 1905	June 17, 1909
147	149	151	153	155
April 6, 1913	January 23, 1917	November 10, 1920	August 30, 1924	June 17, 1928

Tritos series

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.

Series members between 1801 and 2200
April 14, 1809 (Saros 116)	March 14, 1820 (Saros 117)	February 12, 1831 (Saros 118)	January 11, 1842 (Saros 119)	December 11, 1852 (Saros 120)
November 11, 1863 (Saros 121)	October 10, 1874 (Saros 122)	September 8, 1885 (Saros 123)	August 9, 1896 (Saros 124)	July 10, 1907 (Saros 125)
June 8, 1918 (Saros 126)	May 9, 1929 (Saros 127)	April 7, 1940 (Saros 128)	March 7, 1951 (Saros 129)	February 5, 1962 (Saros 130)
January 4, 1973 (Saros 131)	December 4, 1983 (Saros 132)	November 3, 1994 (Saros 133)	October 3, 2005 (Saros 134)	September 1, 2016 (Saros 135)
August 2, 2027 (Saros 136)	July 2, 2038 (Saros 137)	May 31, 2049 (Saros 138)	April 30, 2060 (Saros 139)	March 31, 2071 (Saros 140)
February 27, 2082 (Saros 141)	January 27, 2093 (Saros 142)	December 29, 2103 (Saros 143)	November 27, 2114 (Saros 144)	October 26, 2125 (Saros 145)
September 26, 2136 (Saros 146)	August 26, 2147 (Saros 147)	July 25, 2158 (Saros 148)	June 25, 2169 (Saros 149)	May 24, 2180 (Saros 150)
April 23, 2191 (Saros 151)

Inex series

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.

Series members between 1801 and 2200
December 21, 1805 (Saros 119)	November 30, 1834 (Saros 120)	November 11, 1863 (Saros 121)
October 20, 1892 (Saros 122)	October 1, 1921 (Saros 123)	September 12, 1950 (Saros 124)
August 22, 1979 (Saros 125)	August 1, 2008 (Saros 126)	July 13, 2037 (Saros 127)
June 22, 2066 (Saros 128)	June 2, 2095 (Saros 129)	May 14, 2124 (Saros 130)
April 23, 2153 (Saros 131)	April 3, 2182 (Saros 132)