Solar eclipse of January 23, 1860


An annular solar eclipse occurred at the Moon's ascending node of orbit between Sunday, January 22 and Monday, January 23, 1860, with a magnitude of 0.9168. 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. An annular eclipse appears as a partial eclipse over a region of the Earth thousands of kilometres wide. Occurring about 2.7 days before apogee, the Moon's apparent diameter was smaller.
The path of annularity was visible from parts of Antarctica. A partial solar eclipse was also visible for parts of New Zealand, Antarctica, the southern tip of South America, and eastern Oceania.

Description

The eclipse was visible in much of the South Island and the southernmost portion of North Island around Wellington in New Zealand, it was also visible in all of Antarctica, South America's Patagonia and Oceanian islands such as Macquarrie, Chatham, Antipodes, Tahiti and Tuamotu It was part of solar saros 119.
On the other side as the Moon from the Earth headed towards the left at New Zealand, as the umbral path was outside the South Pole and over the Prime Meridian to the Peninsula, the Moon from the Earth was seen as it was going on bottom, then on the right and on top in the peninsular portion though the Earth rotates to the east as it was north of the South Pole at the Prime Meridian, the rest of the world saw the Moon from the Earth headed towards the left.
The umbral portion was 719 km long and started in Northern Antarctica from east of the Prime Meridian to the 40th meridian east all the way to the west of its peninsula and was shown up to 91% obscuration of the sun. The greatest occurred within the Pacific in Peninsular Antarctica at 71.8 N & 117.2 W at 0:27 UTC and lasted for over 6 minutes.
The eclipse showed up to 50% obscuration off the coast of Antarctica in the area separating the Indian and the Pacific Oceans.

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.
EventTime
First Penumbral External Contact1860 January 22 at 21:54:55.8 UTC
First Umbral External Contact1860 January 22 at 23:29:05.6 UTC
First Central Line1860 January 22 at 23:35:59.6 UTC
First Umbral Internal Contact1860 January 22 at 23:43:44.7 UTC
Equatorial Conjunction1860 January 22 at 23:51:32.6 UTC
Ecliptic Conjunction1860 January 23 at 00:16:56.5 UTC
Greatest Duration1860 January 23 at 00:26:14.5 UTC
Greatest Eclipse1860 January 23 at 00:27:31.1 UTC
Last Umbral Internal Contact1860 January 23 at 01:11:39.9 UTC
Last Central Line1860 January 23 at 01:19:25.9 UTC
Last Umbral External Contact1860 January 23 at 01:26:20.8 UTC
Last Penumbral External Contact1860 January 23 at 03:00:24.2 UTC

ParameterValue
Eclipse Magnitude0.91681
Eclipse Obscuration0.84054
Gamma−0.89691
Sun Right Ascension20h18m13.0s
Sun Declination-19°40'02.4"
Sun Semi-Diameter16'14.8"
Sun Equatorial Horizontal Parallax08.9"
Moon Right Ascension20h19m19.7s
Moon Declination-20°26'02.5"
Moon Semi-Diameter14'48.2"
Moon Equatorial Horizontal Parallax0°54'19.6"
ΔT7.5 s

Eclipse season

This eclipse is part of an eclipse season, a period, roughly every six months, when eclipses occur. Only two eclipse seasons occur each year, and each season lasts about 35 days and repeats just short of six months 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.
January 23
Ascending node
February 7
Descending node
Annular solar eclipse
Solar Saros 119		Partial lunar eclipse
Lunar Saros 131

Related eclipses

Eclipses in 1860

An annular solar eclipse on January 23.

Metonic

Tzolkinex

Half-Saros

Tritos

Solar Saros 119

Inex

Triad

Solar eclipses of 1859–1862

The partial solar eclipses on March 4, 1859 and August 28, 1859 occur in the previous lunar year eclipse set, and the partial solar eclipse on November 21, 1862 occurs in the next lunar year eclipse set.