A total

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 Earth, totally or partially. Such an alignment occurs approximately every six months, during the eclipse season i ...

occurred on 3 May 1715. It was known as Halley's Eclipse, after

Edmond Halley Edmond (or Edmund) Halley (; – ) was an English astronomer, mathematician and physicist. He was the second Astronomer Royal in Britain, succeeding John Flamsteed in 1720. From an observatory he constructed on Saint Helena in 1676–77, Hal ...

(1656–1742) who predicted this eclipse to within 4 minutes accuracy. Halley observed the eclipse from

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

where the city of London enjoyed 3 minutes 33 seconds of totality. He also drew a predictive map showing the path of totality across the

Kingdom of Great Britain Great Britain, also known as the Kingdom of Great Britain, was a sovereign state in Western Europe from 1707 to the end of 1800. The state was created by the 1706 Treaty of Union and ratified by the Acts of Union 1707, which united the Kingd ...

. The original map was about 20 miles off the observed eclipse path, mainly due to his use of inaccurate lunar

ephemeris In astronomy and celestial navigation, an ephemeris (; ; , ) is a book with tables that gives the trajectory of naturally occurring astronomical objects and artificial satellites in the sky, i.e., the position (and possibly velocity) over tim ...

. After the eclipse, he corrected the eclipse path, and added the path and description of the 1724 total solar eclipse. Drawing upon lunar tables made by the first Astronomer Royal

John Flamsteed John Flamsteed (19 August 1646 – 31 December 1719) was an English astronomer and the first Astronomer Royal. His main achievements were the preparation of a 3,000-star catalogue, ''Catalogus Britannicus'', and a star atlas called '' Atlas ...

, William Whiston produced a more technical predictive eclipse map around the same time as Halley. Both Halley's and Whiston's maps were published by John Senex in March 1715. Totality was observed in the Kingdom of Great Britain from

Cornwall Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, ...

in the south-west to

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (), abbreviated ''Lincs'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands and Yorkshire and the Humber regions of England. It is bordered by the East Riding of Yorkshire across the Humber estuary to th ...

and

Norfolk Norfolk ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in England, located in East Anglia and officially part of the East of England region. It borders Lincolnshire and The Wash to the north-west, the North Sea to the north and eas ...

in the east. It was also observed in

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

, where large crowds turned out in

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

to watch it: the weather in Dublin was exceptionally cold and wet, and the eminent judge

Joseph Deane Joseph Deane PC (1674–1715) was an Irish politician and judge who became Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer. His sudden and premature death was popularly believed to be due to a chill caught when watching an eclipse of the sun. Background H ...

caught a fatal chill as a result, although Elrington Ball more prosaically states that his death was probably due to

gout Gout ( ) is a form of inflammatory arthritis characterized by recurrent attacks of pain in a red, tender, hot, and Joint effusion, swollen joint, caused by the deposition of needle-like crystals of uric acid known as monosodium urate crysta ...

.Ball, F. Elrington ''The Judges in Ireland 1221-1921'' John Murray London 1926 Note: Great Britain did not adopt the

Gregorian calendar The Gregorian calendar is the calendar used in most parts of the world. It went into effect in October 1582 following the papal bull issued by Pope Gregory XIII, which introduced it as a modification of, and replacement for, the Julian cale ...

until 1752, so the date was at the time considered 22 April 1715.

Related eclipses

It is a part of Solar Saros 114.

References

NASA chart graphics

Googlemap

NASA Besselian elements

External links

*
Total Eclipses of the Sun
', By Mabel Loomis Todd, 1894, new and revised edition by

David Peck Todd David Peck Todd (March 19, 1855 — June 1, 1939) was an American astronomer. He produced a complete set of photographs of the 1882 transit of Venus. Biography Todd was born in Lake Ridge, New York (state), New York, the son of Sereno Edwards T ...

, 1900.
Halley's eclipse
Hans van der Meer's Eclipse Page

Halley is credited with the first eclipse map showing the path of the Moon's shadow across England during the upcoming total eclipse of 1715.

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20150502062458/http://rstl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/29/338-350/245.full.pdf+html

Edmund Halley, Observations of the Late Total Eclipse of the Sun on the 22d of April Last Past, Made before the Royal Society at Their House in Crane-Court in Fleet-Street, London. by Dr. Edmund Halley, Reg. Soc. Secr. with an Account of What Has Been Communicated from Abroad concerning the Same, Phil Trans R Soc 1714 29: 245–262.
Whiston's predictive map of March 1715

Related eclipses

See also

References

External links

Further reading