Solar eclipse of December 4, 1983

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.[1]

Note: Partial solar eclipses on January 25, 1982 and July 20, 1982 occur in the previous lunar year eclipse set.

Solar eclipse series sets from 1982–1985
Ascending node				Descending node
Saros	Map	Gamma		Saros	Map	Gamma
117	1982 June 21 Partial	-1.21017		122	1982 December 15 Partial	1.12928
127	1983 June 11 Total	-0.49475		132	1983 December 4 Annular	0.40150
137	1984 May 30 Annular	0.27552		142 Partial from Gisborne, NZ	1984 November 22 Total	-0.31318
147	1985 May 19 Partial	1.07197		152	1985 November 12 Total	-0.97948

This eclipse is a part of Saros cycle 132, repeating every 18 years, 11 days, containing 71 events. The series started with partial solar eclipse on August 13, 1208. It contains annular eclipses from March 17, 1569 through March 12, 2146, hybrid on March 23, 2164 and April 3, 2183 and total eclipses from April 14, 2200 through June 19, 2308. The series ends at member 71 as a partial eclipse on September 25, 2470. The longest duration of annular was 6 minutes, 56 seconds on May 9, 1641, and totality will be 2 minutes, 14 seconds on June 8, 2290. All eclipses in this series occurs at the Moon’s descending node.

Series members 28–50 occur between 1690 and 2100:
28	29	30
June 11, 1695	June 22, 1713	July 4, 1731
31	32	33
July 14, 1749	July 25, 1767	August 5, 1785
34	35	36
August 17, 1803	August 27, 1821	September 7, 1839
37	38	39
September 18, 1857	September 29, 1875	October 9, 1893
40	41	42
October 22, 1911	November 1, 1929	November 12, 1947
43	44	45
November 23, 1965	December 4, 1983	December 14, 2001
46	47	48
December 26, 2019	January 5, 2038	January 16, 2056
49	50
January 27, 2074	February 7, 2092

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:
January 14, 1926 (Saros 130)	December 25, 1954 (Saros 131)	December 4, 1983 (Saros 132)
November 13, 2012 (Saros 133)	October 25, 2041 (Saros 134)	October 4, 2070 (Saros 135)
September 14, 2099 (Saros 136)

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 eclipse events, progressing from north to south between July 11, 1953 and July 11, 2029
July 10–12	April 29–30	February 15–16	December 4–5	September 21–23
96	98	100	102	104
July 12, 1915	April 30, 1919	February 15, 1923	December 5, 1926	September 22, 1930
106	108	110	112	114
July 11, 1934	April 30, 1938	February 15, 1942	December 4, 1945	September 22, 1949
116	118	120	122	124
July 11, 1953	April 30, 1957	February 15, 1961	December 4, 1964	September 22, 1968
126	128	130	132	134
July 10, 1972	April 29, 1976	February 16, 1980	December 4, 1983	September 23, 1987
136	138	140	142	144
July 11, 1991	April 29, 1995	February 16, 1999	December 4, 2002	September 22, 2006
146	148	150	152	154
July 11, 2010	April 29, 2014	February 15, 2018	December 4, 2021	September 21, 2025
156	158	160	162	164
July 11, 2029	April 29, 2033	February 15, 2037	December 4, 2040	September 21, 2044