Solar eclipse of February 26, 2017

2017 annular solar eclipse in South America and Africa

34°42′S 31°12′W / 34.7°S 31.2°W / -34.7; -31.2Max. width of band31 km (19 mi)Times (UTC)Greatest eclipse14:54:33ReferencesSaros140 (29 of 71)Catalog # (SE5000)9545

An annular solar eclipse took place on February 26, 2017.^[1]^[2]^[3] 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 only 4.7 days before perigee (Perigee on March 3, 2017), the Moon's apparent diameter was larger. The moon's apparent diameter was just over 0.7% smaller than the Sun's.

It was visible across southern South America in the morning and ended in south-western Africa at sunset. In Argentina, the best places to see the eclipse were located in the south of the Chubut Province, in the towns of Facundo, Sarmiento and Camarones. Lunar perigee occurred at about 2017 Mar 03 at 07:41:24.5 UTC, 4.7 days later.

Predictions and additional information

Eclipse characteristics

Eclipse magnitude: 0.99223

Eclipse obscuration: 0.98451

Gamma: -0.45780

Saros Series: 140th (29 of 71)

Conjunction times

Greatest eclipse: 26 Feb 2017 14:53:24.5 UTC (14:54:32.8 TD)

Ecliptic conjunction: 26 Feb 2017 14:58:23.4 UTC (14:59:31.7 TD)

Equatorial Ccnjunction: 26 Feb 2017 14:38:46.0 UTC (14:39:54.4 TD)

Geocentric coordinates of sun and moon

Sun right ascension: 22.656

Sun declination: -8.49°

Sun diameter: 1938.0 arcseconds

Moon right ascension: 22.665

Moon declination: -8.92°

Moon diameter: 1895.6 arcseconds

Geocentric libration of moon

Latitude: 5.1 degrees south

Longitude: 0.6 degrees east

Direction: 336.5 (NNW)

Images

Animation assembled from 3 images acquired by NASA’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera.

Gallery

Partial from Villa Gesell, Argentina, 13:18 GMT
Coyhaique, Chile, 13:35 GMT, 1 minute before annularity
Partial from Pisco Elqui, Chile, 13:48 GMT
Partial from Punta del Este, Uruguay, 13:56 GMT
Partial from Puerto Cisnes, Chile, 14:17 GMT
Composed image as seen from Paraná, Argentina
Time lapse images as seen from Villa Gesell, Argentina
Animation of the eclipse as seen from Montevideo, Uruguay

Related eclipses

Followed: Solar eclipse of December 29, 2103

Solar eclipses 2015–2018

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]

Solar eclipse series sets from 2015 to 2018
Saros	Map	Gamma	Saros	Map	Gamma
Descending node			Ascending node
120 Longyearbyen, Svalbard	2015 March 20 Total	0.94536	125 Solar Dynamics Observatory	2015 September 13 Partial (south)	−1.10039
130 Balikpapan, Indonesia	2016 March 9 Total	0.26092	135 L'Étang-Salé, Réunion	2016 September 1 Annular	−0.33301
140 Partial from Buenos Aires	2017 February 26 Annular	−0.45780	145 Casper, Wyoming	2017 August 21 Total	0.43671
150 Partial from Olivos, Buenos Aires	2018 February 15 Partial (south)	−1.21163	155 Partial from Huittinen, Finland	2018 August 11 Partial (north)	1.14758

Partial solar eclipses on July 13, 2018, and January 6, 2019, occur during the next semester series.

Saros 140

It is a part of Saros cycle 140, repeating every 18 years, 11 days, containing 71 events. The series started with partial solar eclipse on April 16, 1512. It contains total eclipses from July 21, 1656 through November 9, 1836, hybrid eclipses from November 20, 1854 through December 23, 1908, and annular eclipses from January 3, 1927 through December 7, 2485. The series ends at member 71 as a partial eclipse on June 1, 2774. The longest duration of totality was 4 minutes, 10 seconds on August 12, 1692.

Series members 23–53 occur between 1901 and 2450:
23	24	25
Dec 23, 1908	Jan 3, 1927	Jan 14, 1945
26	27	28
Jan 25, 1963	Feb 4, 1981	Feb 16, 1999
29	30	31
Feb 26, 2017	Mar 9, 2035	Mar 20, 2053
32	33	34
Mar 31, 2071	Apr 10, 2089	Apr 23, 2107
35	36	37
May 3, 2125	May 14, 2143	May 25, 2161
38	39	40
Jun 5, 2179	Jun 15, 2197	Jun 28, 2215
41	42	43
Jul 8, 2233	Jul 19, 2251	Jul 29, 2269
44	45	46
Aug 10, 2287	Aug 21, 2305	Sep 1, 2323
47	48	49
Sep 12, 2341	Sep 23, 2359	Oct 3, 2377
50	51	52
Oct 14, 2395	Oct 25, 2413	Nov 5, 2431
53
Nov 15, 2449

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.

Inex series members between 1901 and 2100:
May 18, 1901 (Saros 136)	April 28, 1930 (Saros 137)	April 8, 1959 (Saros 138)
March 18, 1988 (Saros 139)	February 26, 2017 (Saros 140)	February 5, 2046 (Saros 141)
January 16, 2075 (Saros 142)

Metonic cycle

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 descending node.

21 events between July 22, 1971 and July 22, 2047
July 21–22	May 9–11	February 26–27	December 14–15	October 2–3
116	118	120	122	124
July 22, 1971	May 11, 1975	February 26, 1979	December 15, 1982	October 3, 1986
126	128	130	132	134
July 22, 1990	May 10, 1994	February 26, 1998	December 14, 2001	October 3, 2005
136	138	140	142	144
July 22, 2009	May 10, 2013	February 26, 2017	December 14, 2020	October 2, 2024
146	148	150	152	154
July 22, 2028	May 9, 2032	February 27, 2036	December 15, 2039	October 3, 2043
156
July 22, 2047

Notes and references

^ Cofield, Calla (February 26, 2017). "Moon Blocks (Most of) the Sun in 'Ring of Fire' Solar Eclipse". Space.com.
^ Dwyer, Colin (February 25, 2017). "'Ring Of Fire' Eclipse Set To Blaze In Southern Skies". NPR.
^ ""Ring of fire" annular eclipse: Stunning views of first solar eclipse of 2017". www.cbsnews.com. February 27, 2017.
^ 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.

References

www.solar-eclipse.de - The annular solar eclipse of 02/26/2017
NASA graphics
- Interactive map of the eclipse from NASA
- NASA Besselian Elements - Annular Solar Eclipse of 2017 February 26
hermet.org: Annular Solar Eclipse: February 26 2017

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Solar eclipse of 2017 February 26.

www.solar-eclipse.de - Average cloud coverage and cities along the eclipse path

Solar eclipses

Lists of eclipses

By era	Antiquity Middle Ages Modern era 16th 17th 18th 19th 20th 21st 22nd Future
Saros series	110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162
Visibility	Australia China Israel Philippines Russia Ukraine United Kingdom United States
Historical	Mursili's eclipse (1312 BC) Assyrian eclipse (763 BC) Eclipse of Thales (585 BC)