Annular Solar Eclipse 26th January 2009

2005 October 5th
Annular Solar Eclipse at High Resolution
Credit & Copyright: Stefan Seip


The first Solar Eclipse of 2009 occurs at the Moon's ascending node in western Capricornus.

At 06:06 UT The annular path begins in the South Atlantic when the Moon's antumbral shadow meets Earth and forms a 363 kilometres wide corridor. Traveling eastward, the shadow quickly sweeps south of the African continent, missing it by approximately 900 kilometres.

Slowly curving to the northeast the path crosses the southern Indian Ocean. Greatest eclipse takes place at 07:58:39 UT when the eclipse magnitude will reach 0.9282. At this instant, the annular duration is 7 minutes 54 seconds, the path width is 280 kilometres and the Sun is 73° above the flat horizon formed by the open ocean. The central track continues northeast where it finally encounters land in the form of the Cocos Islands and onward to southern Sumatra and western Java .

At 09:40 UT, the central line duration is 6 minutes 18 seconds and the Sun's altitude at 25°. In its final minutes, the antumbral shadow cuts across central Borneo and clips the northwestern edge of Celebes before ending just short of Mindanao, Philippines at 09:52 UT.

During a 3 hour 46 minute trajectory across our planet, the Moon's antumbra travels approximately 14,500 kilometres and covers 0.9% of Earth's surface area.