A partial solar eclipse occurred at the Moon's descending node of orbit between Monday, April 3 and Tuesday, April 4, 1848, with a magnitude of 0.5834. 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 partial solar eclipse occurs in the polar regions of the Earth when the center of the Moon's shadow misses the Earth.
This eclipse was the second of four partial solar eclipses in 1848, with the others occurring on March 5, August 28 and September 27.
The eclipse was visible in the Pacific Ocean and included the northeast and northwestern Antarctica especially a part of the west of the Antarctic Peninsula.
The eclipse started at sunrise offshore from Antarctica where the Indian and the Pacific Ocean divide and ended at sunset in the peninsula and offshore from Chile.
It showed about up to 15-30% obscuration in northern Antarctica within the 180th meridian, and from 48% to 58% obscuration in the peninsular portion.
10% obscurity in northern Antarctica and 20% at the Antarctic peninsula. The greatest eclipse was at the Antarctic Peninsula at 71.8 S, 89 W at 22:49 UTC (4:49 PM local time).[1]
The subsolar marking was north of the 5th parallel north in the Pacific around the Palmyra Atoll.
Shown below are two tables displaying details about this particular solar eclipse. The first table outlines times at which the moon's penumbra or umbra attains the specific parameter, and the second table describes various other parameters pertaining to this eclipse.[2]
| First Penumbral External Contact | 1848 April 03 at 21:14:32.9 UTC | |
| Equatorial Conjunction | 1848 April 03 at 22:09:39.8 UTC | |
| Greatest Eclipse | 1848 April 03 at 22:49:06.4 UTC | |
| Ecliptic Conjunction | 1848 April 03 at 23:01:13.0 UTC | |
| Last Penumbral External Contact | 1848 April 04 at 00:23:57.4 UTC |
| Eclipse Magnitude | 0.58339 | |
| Eclipse Obscuration | 0.49152 | |
| Gamma | −1.22641 | |
| Sun Right Ascension | 00h52m39.7s | |
| Sun Declination | +05°38'38.8" | |
| Sun Semi-Diameter | 15'58.8" | |
| Sun Equatorial Horizontal Parallax | 08.8" | |
| Moon Right Ascension | 00h54m09.3s | |
| Moon Declination | +04°27'04.6" | |
| Moon Semi-Diameter | 16'41.7" | |
| Moon Equatorial Horizontal Parallax | 1°01'16.4" | |
| ΔT | 6.7 s |
See also: Eclipse cycle. This eclipse is part of an eclipse season, a period, roughly every six months, when eclipses occur. Only two (or occasionally three) eclipse seasons occur each year, and each season lasts about 35 days and repeats just short of six months (173 days) later; thus two full eclipse seasons always occur each year. Either two or three eclipses happen each eclipse season. In the sequence below, each eclipse is separated by a fortnight. The first and last eclipse in this sequence is separated by one synodic month.
The partial solar eclipses on June 16, 1844 and December 9, 1844 occur in the previous lunar year eclipse set, and the partial solar eclipses on March 5, 1848 and August 28, 1848 occur in the next lunar year eclipse set.
| Solar eclipse series sets from 1844 to 1848 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ascending node | Descending node | |||||
| Saros | Map | Gamma | Saros | Map | Gamma | |
| 111 | November 10, 1844 Partial | −1.4902 | 116 | May 6, 1845 Annular | 0.9945 | |
| 121 | October 30, 1845 Hybrid | −0.8538 | 126 | April 25, 1846 Hybrid | 0.2038 | |
| 131 | October 20, 1846 Annular | −0.1506 | 136 | April 15, 1847 Total | −0.5339 | |
| 141 | October 9, 1847 Annular | 0.5774 | 146 | April 3, 1848 Partial | −1.2264 | |
| 151 | September 27, 1848 Partial | 1.2774 | ||||
All eclipses in this table occur at the Moon's descending node.
