Solar eclipse of August 31, 1970

20°18′S 164°00′W / 20.3°S 164°W / -20.3; -164Max. width of band258 km (160 mi)Times (UTC)Greatest eclipse21:55:30ReferencesSaros144 (14 of 70)Catalog # (SE5000)9443

An annular solar eclipse occurred on Monday, August 31 – Tuesday, September 1, 1970. 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. Annularity was visible from the Territory of Papua and New Guinea (today's Papua New Guinea), Gilbert and Ellice Islands (the part that belongs to Tuvalu now) on September 1 (Tuesday), West Samoa (name changed to Samoa later) and the whole American Samoa except Swains Island on August 31 (Monday).

Related eclipses

Solar eclipses of 1968–1971

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.^[1]

Solar eclipse series sets from 1968 to 1971
Ascending node				Descending node
Saros	Map	Gamma		Saros	Map	Gamma
119	1968 March 28 Partial	−1.03704		124	1968 September 22 Total	0.94507
129	1969 March 18 Annular	−0.27037		134	1969 September 11 Annular	0.22014
139	1970 March 7 Total	0.44728		144	1970 August 31 Annular	−0.53640
149	1971 February 25 Partial	1.11876		154	1971 August 20 Partial	−1.26591
A partial solar eclipse of July 22, 1971 occurs in the next lunar year set.

Saros 144

It is a part of Saros cycle 144, repeating every 18 years, 11 days, containing 70 events. The series started with partial solar eclipse on April 11, 1736. It contains annular eclipses from July 7, 1880, through August 27, 2565. There are no total eclipses in the series. The series ends at member 70 as a partial eclipse on May 5, 2980. The longest duration of annularity will be 9 minutes, 52 seconds on December 29, 2168.

Series members 11–21 occur between 1901 and 2100:
11	12	13
Jul 30, 1916	Aug 10, 1934	Aug 20, 1952
14	15	16
Aug 31, 1970	Sep 11, 1988	Sep 22, 2006
17	18	19
Oct 2, 2024	Oct 14, 2042	Oct 24, 2060
20	21
Nov 4, 2078	Nov 15, 2096

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 1901 and 2100
March 6, 1905 (Saros 138)	February 3, 1916 (Saros 139)	January 3, 1927 (Saros 140)
December 2, 1937 (Saros 141)	November 1, 1948 (Saros 142)	October 2, 1959 (Saros 143)
August 31, 1970 (Saros 144)	July 31, 1981 (Saros 145)	June 30, 1992 (Saros 146)
May 31, 2003 (Saros 147)	April 29, 2014 (Saros 148)	March 29, 2025 (Saros 149)
February 27, 2036 (Saros 150)	January 26, 2047 (Saros 151)	December 26, 2057 (Saros 152)
November 24, 2068 (Saros 153)	October 24, 2079 (Saros 154)	September 23, 2090 (Saros 155)

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).

22 eclipse events, progressing from north to south between April 8, 1902, and August 31, 1989:
April 7–8	January 24–25	November 12	August 31-September 1	June 19–20
108			114	116
April 8, 1902			August 31, 1913	June 19, 1917
118	120	122	124	126
April 8, 1921	January 24, 1925	November 12, 1928	August 31, 1932	June 19, 1936
128	130	132	134	136
April 7, 1940	January 25, 1944	November 12, 1947	September 1, 1951	June 20, 1955
138	140	142	144	146
April 8, 1959	January 25, 1963	November 12, 1966	August 31, 1970	June 20, 1974
148	150	152	154
April 7, 1978	January 25, 1982	November 12, 1985	August 31, 1989

Notes

References

• Earth visibility chart and eclipse statistics Eclipse Predictions by Fred Espenak, NASA/GSFC
  • Google interactive map
  • Besselian elements