Annular Solar Eclipse: January 26, 2009

Geographic Region: southern Africa, Antarctica, southeastern Asia, Australia
[Annular: southern Indian Ocean, Sumatra, Borneo]

The first solar eclipse of 2009 occurs at the Moon's ascending node in western Capricornus. An annular eclipse will be visible from a wide track that traverses the Indian Ocean and western Indonesia. A partial eclipse will be seen within the much larger path of the Moon's penumbral shadow, which includes the southern third of Africa, Madagascar, Australia except Tasmania, southeast India, Southeast Asia and Indonesia.

The annular path begins in the South Atlantic at 06:06 UT when the Moon's antumbral shadow meets Earth and forms a 363 kilometre 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. Partial phases of the eclipse are visible primarily from southern Africa, Australia, Southeast Asia and Indonesia.

This is the 50^th eclipse of Saros 131. The family began with an unusually long series of 22 partial eclipses starting on 1125 Aug 01. The first central eclipse was total in the Northern Hemisphere on 1522 Mar 27. It was followed by 5 more total eclipses before the series produce 5 hybrid eclipses from 1630 to 1702. The first annular eclipse of Saros 131 occurred on 1720 Aug 04. The series will produce 29 more annular eclipses the last of which is 2243 Jun 18. Saros 131 terminates on 2369 Sep 02 after a string of 7 partial eclipses.

Eclipse map and predictions courtesy of Fred Espenak - NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center.
For more information on solar and lunar eclipses, see Fred Espenak's Eclipse Home Page:

http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/eclipse.html