| Solar eclipse of July 28, 1851 | |
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Berkowski made this first solar eclipse photograph at the Royal Observatory in Königsberg, Prussia (now Kalinigrad, Russia) |
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Map
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| Type of eclipse | |
| Nature | Total |
| Gamma | 0.7644 |
| Magnitude | 1.0577 |
| Maximum eclipse | |
| Duration | 3m 41s |
| Coordinates | 68N 19.6W |
| Max. width of band | 296 km |
| Times (UTC) | |
| Greatest eclipse | 14:33:42 |
| References | |
| Saros | 143 (14 of 72) |
| Catalog # (SE5000) | 9167 |
A total solar eclipse occurred on July 28, 1851. A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby totally or partially obscuring the image of the Sun for a viewer on Earth. A total solar eclipse occurs when the Moon's apparent diameter is larger than the Sun, blocking all direct sunlight, turning day into darkness. Totality occurs in a narrow path across the surface of the Earth, while a partial solar eclipse will be visible over a region thousands of kilometres wide.
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The first correctly-exposed photograph of the solar corona was made during the total phase of the solar eclipse of 28 July 1851 at Königsberg (now Kaliningrad) by a local daguerreotypist named Berkowski at the Royal Observatory in Königsberg, Prussia (now Kalinigrad in Russia). Berkowski, whose first name was never published, observed at the Royal Observatory. A small 6-cm refracting telescope was attached to the 15.8-cm Fraunhofer heliometer and a 84-second exposure was taken shortly after the beginning of totality.[1]
United Kingdom astronomers, Robert Grant and William Swan, and Austrian astronomer Karl Ludwig von Littrow observed this eclipse and determined that prominences are part of the Sun because the Moon is seen to cover and uncover them as it moves in front of the Sun.[2]
It is a part of solar Saros 143.
