An annular solar eclipse occurred at the Moon's ascending node of orbit between Sunday, January 22 and Monday, January 23, 1860, with a magnitude of 0.9168. 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. Occurring about 2.7 days before apogee (on January 25, 1860, at 17:40 UTC), the Moon's apparent diameter was smaller.[1]
The path of annularity was visible from parts of Antarctica. A partial solar eclipse was also visible for parts of New Zealand, Antarctica, the southern tip of South America, and eastern Oceania.
The eclipse was visible in much of the South Island and the southernmost portion of North Island around Wellington in New Zealand, it was also visible in all of Antarctica (much of the areas had a 24-hour daylight), South America's Patagonia and Oceanian islands such as Macquarrie, Chatham, Antipodes, Tahiti and Tuamotu[2] It was part of solar saros 119.[3]
On the other side as the Moon from the Earth headed towards the left at New Zealand, as the umbral path was outside the South Pole and over the Prime Meridian to the Peninsula, the Moon from the Earth was seen as it was going on bottom, then on the right and on top in the peninsular portion though the Earth rotates to the east as it was north of the South Pole at the Prime Meridian, the rest of the world saw the Moon from the Earth headed towards the left.
The umbral portion was 719 km (449 mi) long and started in Northern Antarctica from east of the Prime Meridian to the 40th meridian east all the way to the west of its peninsula and was shown up to 91% obscuration of the sun. The greatest occurred within the Pacific in Peninsular Antarctica at 71.8 N & 117.2 W at 0:27 UTC (4:27 PM local time on January 22) and lasted for over 6 minutes.[2]
The eclipse showed up to 50% obscuration off the coast of Antarctica in the area separating the Indian and the Pacific Oceans.
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.[4]
| First Penumbral External Contact | 1860 January 22 at 21:54:55.8 UTC | |
| First Umbral External Contact | 1860 January 22 at 23:29:05.6 UTC | |
| First Central Line | 1860 January 22 at 23:35:59.6 UTC | |
| First Umbral Internal Contact | 1860 January 22 at 23:43:44.7 UTC | |
| Equatorial Conjunction | 1860 January 22 at 23:51:32.6 UTC | |
| Ecliptic Conjunction | 1860 January 23 at 00:16:56.5 UTC | |
| Greatest Duration | 1860 January 23 at 00:26:14.5 UTC | |
| Greatest Eclipse | 1860 January 23 at 00:27:31.1 UTC | |
| Last Umbral Internal Contact | 1860 January 23 at 01:11:39.9 UTC | |
| Last Central Line | 1860 January 23 at 01:19:25.9 UTC | |
| Last Umbral External Contact | 1860 January 23 at 01:26:20.8 UTC | |
| Last Penumbral External Contact | 1860 January 23 at 03:00:24.2 UTC |
| Eclipse Magnitude | 0.91681 | |
| Eclipse Obscuration | 0.84054 | |
| Gamma | −0.89691 | |
| Sun Right Ascension | 20h18m13.0s | |
| Sun Declination | -19°40'02.4" | |
| Sun Semi-Diameter | 16'14.8" | |
| Sun Equatorial Horizontal Parallax | 08.9" | |
| Moon Right Ascension | 20h19m19.7s | |
| Moon Declination | -20°26'02.5" | |
| Moon Semi-Diameter | 14'48.2" | |
| Moon Equatorial Horizontal Parallax | 0°54'19.6" | |
| ΔT | 7.5 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 partial solar eclipses on March 4, 1859 and August 28, 1859 occur in the previous lunar year eclipse set, and the partial solar eclipse on November 21, 1862 occurs in the next lunar year eclipse set.
| Solar eclipse series sets from 1859 to 1862 | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ascending node | Descending node | ||||||
| Saros | Map | Gamma | Saros | Map | Gamma | ||
| 109 | February 3, 1859 Partial | −1.5659 | 114 | July 29, 1859 Partial | 1.2598 | ||
| 119 | January 23, 1860 Annular | −0.8969 | 124 | July 18, 1860 Total | 0.5487 | ||
| 129 | January 11, 1861 Annular | −0.1766 | 134 | July 8, 1861 Annular | −0.2231 | ||
| 139 | December 31, 1861 Total | 0.5187 | 144 | June 27, 1862 Partial | −1.0252 | ||
| 149 | December 21, 1862 Partial | 1.1633 | |||||
