Solar eclipse of May 20, 2012

Solar eclipse of May 20, 2012
From Middlegate, Nevada
Map
Type of eclipse
Nature	Annular
Gamma	0.4828
Magnitude	0.9439
Maximum eclipse
Duration	346 sec (5 m 46 s)
Coordinates	49°06′N 176°18′E / 49.1°N 176.3°E / 49.1; 176.3
Max. width of band	237 km (147 mi)
Times (UTC)
(P1) Partial begin	20:56:07
(U1) Total begin	22:06:17
Greatest eclipse	23:53:54
(U4) Total end	1:39:11
(P4) Partial end	2:49:21
References
Saros	128 (58 of 73)
Catalog # (SE5000)	9535

An annular solar eclipse took place on May 20, 2012 (May 21, 2012 in local time in the Eastern Hemisphere), with a magnitude of 0.9439. 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.

Visibility

North America

It was the first annular eclipse in the continental U.S. since the solar eclipse of May 10, 1994 which was also the previous eclipse of this series Solar Saros 128.

Animation as viewed from Albuquerque, New Mexico, showing sunset before the eclipse ends

Animation of eclipse path from space

Hong Kong

It was predicted that the antumbra will pass over Hong Kong but due to weather it was not observable.

Photo Gallery

Asia

• 

  Kōfu, Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan

• 

  Solar eclipse of May 21, 2012 in Keelung City, Taiwan

North America

• 

  Red Bluff, California

• 

  Crescent shadows on an outdoor wall
  San Francisco, California.

• Play media

  Crescent shaped shadows from tree on a wall
  San Francisco, California

• 

  Crescent images from solar eclipse, May 2012
  San Francisco, California

• 

  Near Phoenix, Arizona

• 

  Arrowhead Park Naperville, Illinois at 0:54:00 UTC

• 

  Photo taken from San Juan Capistrano, California at 1:20 UTC

• 

  East of Ogden, Iowa at 1:25 UTC

• 

  Minneapolis, Minnesota
  1:27:53 UTC

• 

  Shawnee Mission Park Shawnee, Kansas

• 

  Eclipse as seen from Flagstaff, Arizona

• 

  Photo taken from San Francisco, California

• 

  80mm refractor, 1:36 UTC, Nevada City, California

• 

  Center line, south shore of Pyramid Lake (Nevada) in Nevada.

• 

  Projection method using 60mm refractor from Medford, Oregon.

• 

  2012-05-20 Eclipse as seen from Wolfforth, Texas.

• 

  Partial Solar Eclipse in Salt Lake City, Utah.

• 

  Amateur scientists observing eclipse in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Related eclipses

Solar eclipses 2011-2014

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 January 4, 2011, and July 1, 2011, occur in the previous semester series.

Solar eclipse series sets from 2011–2014

Descending node			Ascending node
Saros	Map		Saros	Map
118	June 1, 2011 Partial		123	November 25, 2011 Partial
128 Middlegate, Nevada	May 20, 2012 Annular		133 Ellis Beach, Queensland	November 13, 2012 Total
138 Renner Springs, Australia	May 10, 2013 Annular		143 Partial from Accra, Ghana	November 3, 2013 Hybrid
148	April 29, 2014 Annular		153 Partial from Minneapolis, Minnesota	October 23, 2014 Partial

Saros 128

It is a part of Saros cycle 128, repeating every 18 years, 11 days, containing 73 events. The series started with partial solar eclipse on August 29, 984 AD. It contains total eclipses from May 16, 1417 through June 18, 1471 and hybrid eclipses from June 28, 1489 through July 31, 1543. Then it progresses into annular eclipses from August 11, 1561 through July 25, 2120. The series ends at member 73 as a partial eclipse on November 1, 2282. The longest duration of totality was 1 minutes, 45 seconds on June 7, 1453.^[1]

Series members 52-62 occur between 1901 and 2100:

52	53	54
March 17, 1904	March 28, 1922	April 7, 1940
55	56	57
April 19, 1958	April 29, 1976	May 10, 1994
58	59	60
May 20, 2012	June 1, 2030	June 11, 2048
61	62
June 22, 2066	July 3, 2084

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 May 21, 1993 and May 20, 2069.

May 20-21	March 9	December 25-26	October 13-14	August 1-2
118	120	122	124	126
May 21, 1993	March 9, 1997	December 25, 2000	October 14, 2004	August 1, 2008
128	130	132	134	136
May 20, 2012	March 9, 2016	December 26, 2019	October 14, 2023	August 2, 2027
138	140	142	144	146
May 21, 2031	March 9, 2035	December 26, 2038	October 14, 2042	August 2, 2046
148	150	152	154	156
May 20, 2050	March 9, 2054	December 26, 2057	October 13, 2061	August 2, 2065
158
May 20, 2069

Notes

References

• Earth visibility chart and eclipse statistics Eclipse Predictions by Fred Espenak, NASA/GSFC
  • Google interactive map
  • Besselian elements
• Closeup map of path
• www.eclipser.ca: Jay Anderson 2012 May 20/21 Annular Solar Eclipse
• NightSkyInfo.com: May 20, 2012 Annular Solar Eclipse
• Photo Gallery from Big Spring TX

Solar eclipses Lists of eclipses By century Antiquity 20th BC 19th BC 18th BC 17th BC 16th BC 15th BC 14th BC 13th BC 12th BC 11th BC 10th BC 9th BC 8th BC 7th BC 6th BC 5th BC 4th BC 3rd BC 2nd BC 1st BC 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th 10th 11th 12th 13th 14th 15th 16th 17th 18th 19th 20th 21st 22nd 23rd 24th 25th 26th 27th 28th 29th 30th Saros series 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 Visibility China United Kingdom Philippines United States Historical Mursili's eclipse (1312 BC) Assyrian eclipse (763 BC) Eclipse of Thales (585 BC) Crucifixion darkness Total/hybrid eclipses → symbol denotes next total/hybrid eclipse 1560 Aug 21 1598 Mar 7 1652 Apr 8 1654 Aug 12 1699 Sep 23 1715 May 3 1724 May 22 1766 Feb 9 1778 Jun 24 1780 Oct 27 1806 Jun 16 1816 Nov 19 1820 Sep 7 1824 Jun 26 1842 Jul 8 1851 Jul 28 1853 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27 2094 Jan 16 2095 Jun 2 2096 May 22 2097 May 11 2099 Sep 14 2100 Sep 4 2114 Jun 3 2132 Jun 13 2150 Jun 25 2168 Jul 5 2186 Jul 16 Annular eclipses → symbol denotes next annular eclipse 1854 May 26 1879 Jan 22 1889 Jun 28 1901 Nov 11 1903 Mar 29 1904 Mar 17 1905 Mar 6 1907 Jul 10 1908 Jun 28 1911 Oct 22 1914 Feb 25 1915 Feb 14 1915 Aug 10 1916 Jul 30 1917 Dec 14 1918 Dec 3 1919 Nov 22 1921 Apr 8 1922 Mar 28 1923 Mar 17 1925 Jul 20 1926 Jul 9 1927 Jan 3 1929 Nov 1 1932 Mar 7 1933 Feb 24 1933 Aug 21 1934 Aug 10 1935 Dec 25 1936 Dec 13 1937 Dec 2 1939 Apr 19 1940 Apr 7 1941 Mar 27 1943 Aug 1 1945 Jan 14 1947 Nov 12 1948 May 9 1950 Mar 18 1951 Mar 7 1951 Sep 1 1952 Aug 20 1954 Jan 5 1954 Dec 25 1955 Dec 14 1957 Apr 30 1958 Apr 19 1959 Apr 8 1961 Aug 11 1962 Jul 31 1963 Jan 25 1965 Nov 23 1966 May 20 1969 Mar 18 1969 Sep 11 1970 Aug 31 1972 Jan 16 1973 Jan 4 1973 Dec 24 1976 Apr 29 1977 Apr 18 1979 Aug 22 1980 Aug 10 1981 Feb 4 1983 Dec 4 1984 May 30 1987 Sep 23 1988 Sep 11 1990 Jan 26 1991 Jan 15 1992 Jan 4 1994 May 10 1995 Apr 29 1998 Aug 22 1999 Feb 16 2001 Dec 14 2002 Jun 10 2003 May 31 2005 Oct 3 2006 Sep 22 2008 Feb 7 2009 Jan 26 2010 Jan 15 2012 May 20 2013 May 10 2014 Apr 29 → 2016 Sep 1 2017 Feb 26 2019 Dec 26 2020 Jun 21 2021 Jun 10 2023 Oct 14 2024 Oct 2 2026 Feb 17 2027 Feb 6 2028 Jan 26 2030 Jun 1 2031 May 21 2032 May 9 2034 Sep 12 2035 Mar 9 2038 Jan 5 2038 Jul 2 2039 Jun 21 2041 Oct 25 2042 Oct 14 2043 Oct 3 2044 Feb 28 2045 Feb 16 2046 Feb 5 2048 Jun 11 2049 May 31 2052 Sep 22 2053 Mar 20 2056 Jan 16 2056 Jul 12 2057 Jul 1 2059 Nov 5 2060 Oct 24 2061 Oct 13 2063 Feb 28 2064 Feb 17 2066 Jun 22 2067 Jun 11 2070 Oct 4 2071 Mar 31 2074 Jan 27 2074 Jul 24 2075 Jul 13 2077 Nov 15 2078 Nov 4 2079 Oct 24 2081 Mar 10 2082 Feb 27 2084 Jul 3 2085 Jun 22 2085 Dec 16 2088 Oct 14 2089 Apr 10 2092 Feb 7 2092 Aug 3 2093 Jul 23 2095 Nov 27 2096 Nov 15 2097 Nov 4 2099 Mar 21 2100 Mar 10 Partial eclipses → symbol denotes next partial eclipse 1902 Apr 8 1902 May 7 1902 Oct 31 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