
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 the Earth, totally or partially. Such an alignment occurs during an eclipse season, approximately every six month ...
occurred on September 10, 1923.
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. A total solar eclipse occurs when the Moon's
apparent diameter is larger than the Sun's, blocking all direct sunlight, turning day into darkness. Totality occurs in a narrow path across Earth's surface, with the partial solar eclipse visible over a surrounding region thousands of kilometres wide.
The path of totality started at the southeastern tip of
Shiashkotan in
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
(now in
Russia) on September 11, and crossed the
Pacific Ocean, southwestern
California including the whole
Channel Islands, northwestern and northern
Mexico,
Yucatan Peninsula,
British Honduras (today's
Belize),
Swan Islands, Honduras, and
Serranilla Bank and
Bajo Nuevo
Bajo Nuevo Bank, also known as the Petrel Islands ( es, Bajo Nuevo, Islas Petrel), is a small, uninhabited reef with some small grass-covered islets, located in the western Caribbean Sea at , with a lighthouse on Low Cay at . The closest neig ...
in
Colombia
Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...
on September 10. The eclipse was over 90% in Los Angeles, San Diego and Santa Barbara in the
Southern California coast.
Viewings
At
Santa Catalina Island, off the coast of California, a large group of scientists gathered to observe the eclipse were foiled by clouds, with the ''Los Angeles Times'' saying that "nothing of the eclipse was seen save two glimpses that showed the crescent of the sun, a sickly, white watermelon rind with the wavering black moon and a few rags of black clouds fast blotting out the white light":
All day the scientists from Yerkes Observatory of the University of Chicago, from the University of Wisconsin, from Dearborn University, from Drake University and Carleton College, had rehearsed and rehearsed to the counting of the seconds and there they stood now while the moon covered the sun and the world was dark and still, and though the counter counted there was no possibility of taking pictures; no chance of seeing anything but that gray, blue, purple shadow moving across the sky.
Even as late as 11:30 when the eclipse began, the scientists had hopes. They had come thousands of miles, had worked hard, had spent much money, all for a few minutes of clear sky. They had worked in the sweltering sun for weeks and weeks 1302 feet above the sea. There had not been one moment of one day that was not flooded with sunshine. "And surely," said Prof. Edwin Frost of the University of Chicago, "surely we will have these few minutes today."
In
Bakersfield
Bakersfield is a city in Kern County, California, United States. It is the county seat and largest city of Kern County. The city covers about near the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley and the Central Valley region. Bakersfield's populat ...
, where the last eclipse of the Sun had taken place 123 years earlier, many watched the eclipse from streets, chickens were confused, and "all the astronomical apparatus of Bakersfield" was trained on the eclipse.
In
New York City the eclipse, while partial, was viewed successfully; in the area of totality, it was "studied by astronomers who
eredepending on it to help them test out Einstein's famous
theory of relativity and whether light rays are bent by the attraction of gravity".
Related eclipses
Solar eclipses of 1921–1924
Solar 143
Notes
References
Foto and sketchs of Solar Corona September 10, 1923
{{DEFAULTSORT:Solar Eclipse Of September 10, 1923
1923 09 10
1923 in science
1923 09 10
September 1923 events