Solar eclipse of July 10, 1972

Solar eclipse of July 10, 1972
Map
Type of eclipse
Nature Total
Gamma 0.6872
Magnitude 1.0379
Maximum eclipse
Duration 156 sec (2 m 36 s)
Coordinates 63°30′N 94°12′W / 63.5°N 94.2°W
Max. width of band 175 km (109 mi)
Times (UTC)
Greatest eclipse 19:46:38
References
Saros 126 (45 of 72)
Catalog # (SE5000) 9448

A total solar eclipse occurred on July 10, 1972. It was visible as a total eclipse across northeastern Asia and northern Canada, and as a partial eclipse across the United States.

Related eclipses

Solar eclipses of 1971-1974

Each member 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.

Note: Partial solar eclipses on February 25, 1971 and August 20, 1971 occur in the next lunar year set.

Solar eclipse series sets from 1971-1974
Descending node   Ascending node
SarosMap SarosMap
116
July 22, 1971
Partial
121
January 16, 1972
Annular
126
July 10, 1972
Total
131
January 4, 1973
Annular
136
June 30, 1973
Total
141
December 24, 1973
Annular
146
June 20, 1974
Total
151
December 13, 1974
Partial

Saros 126

It is a part of Saros cycle 126, repeating every 18 years, 11 days, containing 71 events. The series started with partial solar eclipse on March 10, 1179. It contains annular eclipses from June 4, 1323 through April 4, 1810 and hybrid eclipses from April 14, 1828 through May 6, 1864. It contains total eclipses from May 17, 1882 through August 23, 2044. The series ends at member 72 as a partial eclipse on May 3, 2459. The longest duration of central eclipse (annular or total) was 5 minutes, 46 seconds of annularity on November 22, 1593. The longest duration of totality was 2 minutes, 36 seconds on July 10, 1972.[1]

Series members 39-49 occur between 1901 and 2100:

39 40 41

June 8, 1918

June 19, 1936

June 30, 1954
42 43 44

July 10, 1972

July 22, 1990

August 1, 2008
45 46 47

August 12, 2026

August 23, 2044

September 3, 2062
48 49

September 13, 2080

September 25, 2098

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).

This series has 21 eclipse events between July 11, 1953 and July 11, 2029.

In popular culture

Carly Simon's December 1972 pop hit "You're So Vain" contains the lyric "Then you flew your Learjet up to Nova Scotia to see the total eclipse of the sun." As she started writing lyrics that would become this song on a napkin as far back as 1971, the lyrics cannot possibly have been a reference to this eclipse, but only to the one whose path of totality also crossed Nova Scotia two years earlier, on March 7, 1970.

Notes

  1. Solar_Saros_series_126, accessed October 2010

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Solar eclipse of 1972 July 10.