A partial solar eclipse occurred at the Moon's descending node of orbit on Sunday, November 20, 1873, with a magnitude of 0.5138. 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.
It was the last of two partial eclipses that took place in 1873.[1]
The eclipse took place in almost the whole of Antarctica (much of it in areas that had a 24-hour daylight at the time) except for areas within the separation of the Indian and Pacific Ocean and the northernmost of its peninsula with its islands which was nighttime, it also occurred largely in the Atlantic and Indian Ocean along with Prince Edward and Kerguelen Islands. The rim of the eclipse included modern-day South Africa and the south of Madagascar, the eclipse was close to Maputo (then Lourenço Marques), Mozambique.
The eclipse went as far as hundreds of miles (or kilometers) south of East London, South Africa and around the same parallel with Cape Town. The eclipse started at sunrise in the Indian Ocean and ended at sunset in Antarctica. A very small part occurred on the location of the previous eclipse, many areas occurred on the opposite side.
As the moon moved towards the left on Earth in Africa, at the peninsular portion, in Northern and Peninsular Antarctica, it was seen as it was moved towards the bottom right, then right then top as the axis spun at around the 70th parallel south.
The center of the Moon's shadow was missed by about 1,300 km above the area (69 S) south of the Antarctic Circle.
The eclipse began at sunrise southeast of Madagascar and ended at sunset in the southern part of the Pacific Ocean. The greatest eclipse was in the Atlantic off the shore of Antarctica at 63.2 S & 9.5 W at 3:22 UTC and occurred after sunrise.[1]
It showed up to 25% obscuration of the sun at the middle of the Antarctic Peninsula at the 110th meridian and around 30% in the area of the South Pole, at the northern shore by the 20th meridian, it was close to 50% obscured.The subsolar marking was in Brazil.
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 | 1873 November 20 at 01:38:06.3 UTC | |
| Greatest Eclipse | 1873 November 20 at 03:22:52.2 UTC | |
| Ecliptic Conjunction | 1873 November 20 at 03:36:46.9 UTC | |
| Equatorial Conjunction | 1873 November 20 at 04:10:56.9 UTC | |
| Last Penumbral External Contact | 1873 November 20 at 05:07:13.1 UTC |
| Eclipse Magnitude | 0.51380 | |
| Eclipse Obscuration | 0.39899 | |
| Gamma | −1.26246 | |
| Sun Right Ascension | 15h42m38.2s | |
| Sun Declination | -19°42'44.2" | |
| Sun Semi-Diameter | 16'11.7" | |
| Sun Equatorial Horizontal Parallax | 08.9" | |
| Moon Right Ascension | 15h41m02.2s | |
| Moon Declination | -20°49'41.2" | |
| Moon Semi-Diameter | 15'17.0" | |
| Moon Equatorial Horizontal Parallax | 0°56'05.5" | |
| ΔT | -2.5 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 January 31, 1870 and July 28, 1870 occurs in the previous lunar year eclipse set.
| Solar eclipse series sets from 1870 to 1873 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ascending node | Descending node | |||||
| Saros | Map | Gamma | Saros | Map | Gamma | |
| 115 | June 28, 1870 Partial | −1.1949 | 120 | December 22, 1870 Total | 0.8585 | |
| 125 | June 18, 1871 Annular | −0.4550 | 130 | December 12, 1871 Total | 0.1836 | |
| 135 | June 6, 1872 Annular | 0.3095 | 140 | November 30, 1872 Hybrid | −0.5081 | |
| 145 | May 26, 1873 Partial | 1.0513 | 150 | November 20, 1873 Partial | −1.2625 | |
All eclipses in this table occur at the Moon's descending node.
