Solar eclipse of January 23, 1860

Solar eclipse of January 23, 1860
Solar eclipse of January 23, 1860
	Map
Type of eclipse
Nature	Annular
Gamma	−0.8969
Magnitude	0.9168
Maximum eclipse
Duration	367 s (6 min 7 s)
Coordinates	71°48′S 117°12′W / 71.8°S 117.2°W
Max. width of band	719 km (447 mi)
Times (UTC)
Greatest eclipse	0:27:31
References
Saros	119 (57 of 71)
Catalog # (SE5000)	9187

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 (ring). 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 (on January 25, 1860, at 17:40 UTC), the Moon's apparent diameter was smaller.^[1]

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 (much of the areas had a 24-hour daylight), South America's Patagonia and Oceanian islands such as Macquarrie, Chatham, Antipodes, Tahiti and Tuamotu^[2] It was part of solar saros 119.^[3]

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 (449 mi) 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 (4:27 PM local time on January 22) and lasted for over 6 minutes.^[2]

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.^[4]

January 23, 1860 Solar Eclipse Times
Event	Time (UTC)
First Penumbral External Contact	1860 January 22 at 21:54:55.8 UTC
First Umbral External Contact	1860 January 22 at 23:29:05.6 UTC
First Central Line	1860 January 22 at 23:35:59.6 UTC
First Umbral Internal Contact	1860 January 22 at 23:43:44.7 UTC
Equatorial Conjunction	1860 January 22 at 23:51:32.6 UTC
Ecliptic Conjunction	1860 January 23 at 00:16:56.5 UTC
Greatest Duration	1860 January 23 at 00:26:14.5 UTC
Greatest Eclipse	1860 January 23 at 00:27:31.1 UTC
Last Umbral Internal Contact	1860 January 23 at 01:11:39.9 UTC
Last Central Line	1860 January 23 at 01:19:25.9 UTC
Last Umbral External Contact	1860 January 23 at 01:26:20.8 UTC
Last Penumbral External Contact	1860 January 23 at 03:00:24.2 UTC

January 23, 1860 Solar Eclipse Parameters
Parameter	Value
Eclipse Magnitude	0.91681
Eclipse Obscuration	0.84054
Gamma	−0.89691
Sun Right Ascension	20h18m13.0s
Sun Declination	-19°40'02.4"
Sun Semi-Diameter	16'14.8"
Sun Equatorial Horizontal Parallax	08.9"
Moon Right Ascension	20h19m19.7s
Moon Declination	-20°26'02.5"
Moon Semi-Diameter	14'48.2"
Moon Equatorial Horizontal Parallax	0°54'19.6"
ΔT	7.5 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 January–February 1860
January 23 Ascending node (new moon)	February 7 Descending node (full moon)

Annular solar eclipse Solar Saros 119	Partial lunar eclipse Lunar Saros 131

Related eclipses

Solar eclipses of 1859–1862

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.^[5]

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.

Solar eclipse series sets from 1859 to 1862
Ascending node			Descending node
Saros	Map	Gamma	Saros	Map	Gamma
109	February 3, 1859 Partial	−1.5659	114	July 29, 1859 Partial	1.2598
119	January 23, 1860 Annular	−0.8969	124	July 18, 1860 Total	0.5487
129	January 11, 1861 Annular	−0.1766	134	July 8, 1861 Annular	−0.2231
139	December 31, 1861 Total	0.5187	144	June 27, 1862 Partial	−1.0252
149	December 21, 1862 Partial	1.1633

Saros 119

This eclipse is a part of Saros series 119, repeating every 18 years, 11 days, and containing 71 events. The series started with a partial solar eclipse on May 15, 850 AD. It contains total eclipses on August 9, 994 AD and August 20, 1012; a hybrid eclipse on August 31, 1030; and annular eclipses from September 10, 1048 through March 18, 1950. The series ends at member 71 as a partial eclipse on June 24, 2112. 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 10 at 32 seconds on August 20, 1012, and the longest duration of annularity was produced by member 44 at 7 minutes, 37 seconds on September 1, 1625. All eclipses in this series occur at the Moon’s ascending node of orbit.^[6]

Series members 54–71 occur between 1801 and 2112:
54	55	56
December 21, 1805	January 1, 1824	January 11, 1842
57	58	59
January 23, 1860	February 2, 1878	February 13, 1896
60	61	62
February 25, 1914	March 7, 1932	March 18, 1950
63	64	65
March 28, 1968	April 9, 1986	April 19, 2004
66	67	68
April 30, 2022	May 11, 2040	May 22, 2058
69	70	71
June 1, 2076	June 13, 2094	June 24, 2112

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
June 26, 1805 (Saros 114)	May 27, 1816 (Saros 115)	April 26, 1827 (Saros 116)	March 25, 1838 (Saros 117)	February 23, 1849 (Saros 118)
January 23, 1860 (Saros 119)	December 22, 1870 (Saros 120)	November 21, 1881 (Saros 121)	October 20, 1892 (Saros 122)	September 21, 1903 (Saros 123)
August 21, 1914 (Saros 124)	July 20, 1925 (Saros 125)	June 19, 1936 (Saros 126)	May 20, 1947 (Saros 127)	April 19, 1958 (Saros 128)
March 18, 1969 (Saros 129)	February 16, 1980 (Saros 130)	January 15, 1991 (Saros 131)	December 14, 2001 (Saros 132)	November 13, 2012 (Saros 133)
October 14, 2023 (Saros 134)	September 12, 2034 (Saros 135)	August 12, 2045 (Saros 136)	July 12, 2056 (Saros 137)	June 11, 2067 (Saros 138)
May 11, 2078 (Saros 139)	April 10, 2089 (Saros 140)	March 10, 2100 (Saros 141)	February 8, 2111 (Saros 142)	January 8, 2122 (Saros 143)
December 7, 2132 (Saros 144)	November 7, 2143 (Saros 145)	October 7, 2154 (Saros 146)	September 5, 2165 (Saros 147)	August 4, 2176 (Saros 148)
July 6, 2187 (Saros 149)	June 4, 2198 (Saros 150)

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
March 4, 1802 (Saros 117)	February 12, 1831 (Saros 118)	January 23, 1860 (Saros 119)
January 1, 1889 (Saros 120)	December 14, 1917 (Saros 121)	November 23, 1946 (Saros 122)
November 3, 1975 (Saros 123)	October 14, 2004 (Saros 124)	September 23, 2033 (Saros 125)
September 3, 2062 (Saros 126)	August 15, 2091 (Saros 127)	July 25, 2120 (Saros 128)
July 5, 2149 (Saros 129)	June 16, 2178 (Saros 130)