An annular

solar eclipse A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby obscuring the view of the Sun from a small part of the Earth, totally or partially. Such an alignment occurs during an eclipse season, approximately every six month ...

occurred on November 11, 1863, during spring. A solar eclipse occurs when the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...

passes between

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

and the

Sun The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...

, 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 The angular diameter, angular size, apparent diameter, or apparent size is an angular distance describing how large a sphere or circle appears from a given point of view. In the vision sciences, it is called the visual angle, and in optics, it is ...

is smaller than the Sun's, blocking most of the Sun's light and causing the Sun to look like an

annulus Annulus (or anulus) or annular indicates a ring- or donut-shaped area or structure. It may refer to: Human anatomy * ''Anulus fibrosus disci intervertebralis'', spinal structure * Annulus of Zinn, a.k.a. annular tendon or ''anulus tendineus com ...

(ring). An annular eclipse appears as a partial eclipse over a region of the Earth thousands of kilometres wide. Parts of the areas near the Indian Ocean occurred where the solar eclipse occurred on November 21, 1862. It was part of the

solar saros 121 Saros cycle series 121 for solar eclipses occurs at the Moon's ascending node, repeating every 18 years, 11 days, contains 71 solar eclipse events. 55 of these are umbral eclipses. All eclipses in this series occurs at the Moon's ascending node. ...

Description

The eclipse took place in Africa including Namacqualand (then also South-West Africa, now Namibia), Bechuanaland (now Botswana) South Africa (which included the British colonies and the Boer states at the time), Basutoland (parts now Lesotho), Zululand (now part of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa) and portions of Swaziland. The rest took place in the South Atlantic up to hundreds of kilometers (or miles) offshore from South America except for Tierra del Fuego which was included and included the islands, the Indian Ocean, all of Antarctica which many areas had a 24-hour daylight that time, the southernmost areas of Australia along with Tasmania and the southernmost parts of the Pacific Ocean. As the moon moved towards the left on Earth in Africa, at the peninsular portion, it was seen as it was moved towards the bottom right, then right then top as the axis spun at around the 71st parallel south. The eclipse started at sunrise close to South America and finished at sunset in Australia, 70% at the Antarctic shores at the Indian Ocean. It showed up to 30% obscuration in the area of

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...

and

Cape Agulhas Cape Agulhas (; pt, Cabo das Agulhas , "Cape of the Needles") is a rocky headland in Western Cape, South Africa. It is the geographic southern tip of the African continent and the beginning of the dividing line between the Atlantic and Indian ...

up to 99% inside the maximum width of band. The greatest eclipse was in the middle of Antarctica east of the

Prime Meridian A prime meridian is an arbitrary meridian (a line of longitude) in a geographic coordinate system at which longitude is defined to be 0°. Together, a prime meridian and its anti-meridian (the 180th meridian in a 360°-system) form a great c ...

at 75.4 S, 15.1 E at 8:09 UTC (9:09 AM local time) and lasted for 22 seconds, the maximum width of band was only 42 km (26 miles), the view around it was partly dark even inside the clouds. The subsolar marking was east of

Madagascar Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...

and close to the

Mascarene Islands The Mascarene Islands (, ) or Mascarenes or Mascarenhas Archipelago is a group of islands in the Indian Ocean east of Madagascar consisting of the islands belonging to the Republic of Mauritius as well as the French department of Réunion. Thei ...

References

External links

Google interactive maps

Solar eclipse data
{{Solar eclipses 1863 11 11 Solar eclipse of 11 11 1863 11 11 November 1863 events

Description

See also

References

External links