Solar eclipse of November 3rd, 2013

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Solar eclipse of November 3rd, 2013
SolarEclipse2013Nov03H.GIF
classification
Type Hybrid
area Eastern North and South America , Southern Europe , Africa
Hybrid: Atlantic , Central Africa
Saros cycle 148 (23 of 72)
Gamma value 0.3273
Greatest eclipse
Duration 1 minute 39.6 seconds
place North Atlantic south of Liberia
location 3 ° 30 ′  N , 11 ° 42 ′  W Coordinates: 3 ° 30 ′  N , 11 ° 42 ′  W
time November 3, 2013 12:46:28   UT
size 1.0159

The solar eclipse of November 3, 2013 was total for almost the entire course , only at the beginning it was ring-shaped and was therefore classified as a hybrid eclipse . For a hybrid eclipse, its totality of one minute and 40 seconds was extremely long. It is only surpassed again by the hybrid eclipse of 3264.

The totality was observable from the Atlantic and Central Africa . The partial covering of the sun during this eclipse could be observed not only from the Atlantic Ocean and the entire African continent but also from northern South America , southern Europe and the Arabian Peninsula .

course

The eclipse began off the east coast of the USA and could be seen from there as a partial eclipse under favorable conditions at sunrise, whereby a maximum of 30 percent of the solar disk was still covered.

On the central line across the Atlantic in an easterly direction, the eclipse was initially ring-shaped, but after a few 100 kilometers the umbra of the moon reached the surface of the earth and the eclipse became total. At the beginning of totality, the area of ​​total eclipse was vanishingly narrow, the width of the shadow path grew to almost 60 kilometers during the migration across the Atlantic. The maximum eclipse duration of one minute and 40 seconds occurred shortly before reaching the African continent.

The umbra reached the African continent in Gabon and was 45 km wide there. The shadow path first reached the Congo and then Uganda through hard-to-reach and sparsely populated areas of the low mountainous hinterland . There, the darkness on the central line lasted only 22 seconds. In Kenya the duration of totality continued to decrease and with a lot of luck the eclipse could be observed at sunset. At least theoretically, the eclipse path still passed through Ethiopia and just reached the border with Somalia , where the umbra separated from the earth. At this point, the apparent diameter of the sun and moon corresponded almost exactly, so towards the end the eclipse was just total and not yet ring-shaped.

Constellation of the planets and comet C / 2012 S1 (ISON)

During this eclipse, the planets Saturn and Mercury were in close proximity to the sun. Both were barely 4 degrees away from the sun. Comet C / 2012 S1 (ISON) was expected to be visible from early November.

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 .

Web links

Commons : Solar eclipse of November 3rd, 2013  - Collection of images, videos and audio files