Solar eclipse of December 14, 1955
Introduction An annular solar eclipse occurred on December 14, 1955.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.Annularity was visible from French Equatorial Africa (the part now belonging to Chad), Libya, Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (the part now belonging to Sudan) including the capital city Khartoum, French Somaliland (today's Djibouti) including the capital Djibouti City, British Somaliland (today's Somaliland) including the capital city Hargeisa, the Trust Territory of Somaliland (today's Somalia), the Maldives, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Burma, Thailand including the capital city Bangkok, Cambodia, Laos, North Vietnam and South Vietnam (now belonging to Vietnam), China, British Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Ryukyu Islands. It was the third central solar eclipse visible from Bangkok from 1948 to 1958, where it is rare for a large city to witness four central solar eclipses in just 9.945 years. This was the 20th member Solar Saros 141, and the last of first set of solar eclipses without a penumbral internal contact (without a penumbra northern limit), the next event is the 1973 Dec 24 event, which is the first of 19 solar eclipses with a penumbral internal contact (has penumbral northern and southern limits) until 2298 Jul 09.Occurring only one day before apogee (December 15, 1955), the Moon's apparent diameter was smaller.The duration of annularity at maximum eclipse (closest to but slightly shorter than the longest duration) was 12 minutes, 9.17 seconds in the Indian Ocean. It was the longest annular solar eclipse from December 17, 168 to January 14, 3080.Among all the 23740 solar eclipses from 4000 BC to 6000 AD, 7881 are annular, and only 3 of them are longer than this one.
More details Eclipse Magnitude: 0.91764Eclipse Obscuration: 0.84206Gamma: 0.42658Saros Series: 141st (20 of 70)Greatest Eclipse: 14 Dec 1955 07:01:53.7 UTC (07:02:25.1 TD)Ecliptic Conjunction: 14 Dec 1955 07:07:02.4 UTC (07:07:33.8 TD)Equatorial Conjunction: 14 Dec 1955 07:03:46.6 UTC (07:04:18.1 TD)Sun right ascension: 17.38Moon right ascension: 17.38Earth's shadow right ascension: 5.38Sun declination: -23.2Moon declination: -22.8Earth's shadow declination: 23.2Sun diameter: 1949.8 arcsecondsMoon diameter: 1765.0 arcsecondsPath Width at Greatest Eclipse: 345.7 km (214.8 mi)Path Width at Greatest Duration: 345.8 km (214.9 mi)Central Duration at Greatest Eclipse: 12 minutes, 9.17 secondsCentral Duration at Greatest Duration: 12 minutes, 9.23 seconds
Extreme duration With a maximum length of annularity duration of 12 minutes and 9.17 seconds, this is the longest solar eclipse in the millennium, as well as the longest duration in Saros 141 and one of the longest eclipses ever observed. The annular path begins in northern Africa, then passing Maldives (near the maximum eclipse), then crosses just southern edge of Sri Lanka, then the track continues to some countries in Indochina and the track ends just slightly after the track passes Taiwan.
Related eclipses === Solar eclipses of 1953–1956====== Saros 141====== Inex series === Inex series members between 1901 and 2100:150pxJanuary 3, 1927(Saros 140)150pxDecember 14, 1955(Saros 141)150pxNovember 22, 1984(Saros 142)150pxNovember 3, 2013(Saros 143)150pxOctober 14, 2042(Saros 144)150pxSeptember 23, 2071(Saros 145)150pxSeptember 4, 2100(Saros 146)=== Metonic series ===22 eclipse events between December 13, 1898 and July 20, 1982December 13–14October 1–2July 20–21May 9February 24–25111113115117119150pxDecember 13, 1898150pxJuly 21, 1906150pxMay 9, 1910150pxFebruary 25, 1914121123125127129150pxDecember 14, 1917150pxOctober 1, 1921150pxJuly 20, 1925150pxMay 9, 1929150pxFebruary 24, 1933131133135137139150pxDecember 13, 1936150pxOctober 1, 1940150pxJuly 20, 1944150pxMay 9, 1948150pxFebruary 25, 1952141143145147149150pxDecember 14, 1955150pxOctober 2, 1959150pxJuly 20, 1963150pxMay 9, 1967150pxFebruary 25, 1971151153155150pxDecember 13, 1974150pxOctober 2, 1978150pxJuly 20, 1982
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