Solar eclipse of April 18, 1977

An annular solar eclipse took place on April 18, 1977. 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 in South West Africa (today's Namibia), Angola, Zambia, southeastern Zaire (today's Democratic Republic of Congo), northern Malawi, Tanzania, Seychelles and the whole British Indian Ocean Territory.

Solar eclipse of April 18, 1977
Map
Type of eclipse
NatureAnnular
Gamma-0.399
Magnitude0.9449
Maximum eclipse
Duration424 sec (7 m 4 s)
Coordinates11.9°S 28.3°E / -11.9; 28.3
Max. width of band220 km (140 mi)
Times (UTC)
Greatest eclipse10:31:30
References
Saros138 (29 of 70)
Catalog # (SE5000)9458

Solar eclipses of 1975–1978

There were 8 solar eclipses (at 6 month intervals) between May 11, 1975 and October 2, 1978.

Saros 138

It is a part of Saros cycle 138, repeating every 18 years, 11 days, containing 70 events. The series started with partial solar eclipse on June 6, 1472. It contains annular eclipses from August 31, 1598 through February 18, 2482 with a hybrid eclipse on March 1, 2500. It has total eclipses from March 12, 2518 through April 3, 2554. The series ends at member 70 as a partial eclipse on July 11, 2716. The longest duration of totality will be only 56 seconds on April 3, 2554.

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.

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 descending node.

Notes

    References

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