Solar eclipse of February 26, 2017

Solar eclipse of February 26, 2017
classification
Type	Ring-shaped
area	Southern South America , Atlantic , Africa , Antarctica Annular: Pacific , Chile , Argentina , Atlantic , Africa
Saros cycle	140 (29 of 71)
Gamma value	−0.4578
Greatest eclipse
Duration	44 seconds
place	South Atlantic
location	34 ° 41 ′  S , 31 ° 11 ′  W Coordinates: 34 ° 41 ′  S , 31 ° 11 ′  W
time	February 26, 2017 14:53:21   UT
size	0.9922

The annular solar eclipse of February 26, 2017 was observed almost exclusively in the southern hemisphere. Chile , Argentina , Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo were in the zone of annular eclipse. The eclipse began 3100 kilometers west of the Chilean coast in the Pacific , covered South America , the southern Atlantic and ended in southwest Africa .

At the middle of the eclipse the moon covered the sun to more than 99 percent. The remaining, narrow ring of the sun could already be broken up into individual fragments due to the unevenness of the lunar landscape. The duration of the annular phase during the largest eclipse by the moon was 44 seconds on the central line.

In ring-shaped eclipses, in which the moon almost covers the sun at the time of the greatest eclipse and whose maximum duration is less than 2 minutes and 18 seconds, the maximum duration of the ring-shaped phase is not during the time of the greatest eclipse, but on the central line at the beginning or end of darkness. In this eclipse, the maximum duration of the ring-shaped phase was actually theoretically 1 minute and 22 seconds and was at the very beginning of the eclipse, it steadily decreased until the time of the greatest eclipse and then increased again.

literature

• Wolfgang Held: Solar and lunar eclipses and the most important astronomical constellations up to 2017. Verlag Freies Geistesleben, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-7725-2231-9 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Hermann Mucke, Jean Meeus : Canon of solar eclipses: -2003 to +2526. Astronomical Office, Vienna 1992, page XXXII
2. ↑ Fred Espenak (NASA): Path of the Annular Solar Eclipse of 2017 Feb 26

Web links

Commons : Solar eclipse of February 26th, 2017  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• solar-eclipse.de: The annular solar eclipse of February 26th, 2017
• NASA: Total Solar Eclipse of 2017 February 26
• Solar Eclipses of Saros 140
• Astro Corner: 02/26/2017 - Annular solar eclipse