Solar eclipse of January 21, 1852

Solar eclipse of January 21, 1852
Solar eclipse of January 21, 1852
	Map
Type of eclipse
Nature	Partial
Gamma	−1.2948
Magnitude	0.4577
Maximum eclipse
Coordinates	68°54′S 124°18′W / 68.9°S 124.3°W
Times (UTC)
Greatest eclipse	7:12:16
References
Saros	148 (12 of 75)
Catalog # (SE5000)	9168

A partial solar eclipse occurred at the Moon's descending node of orbit on Wednesday, January 21, 1852, with a magnitude of 0.4577. 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 first of three partial eclipses that took place that year within the space of nearly six months, the last one was in June 1852 in the same hemisphere with a very tiny portion in the same area with the previous eclipse but the remainder in South America.^[1]

Description

The eclipse was visible in almost the whole of Antarctica which had a 24-hour daylight with the exception of one part of the mid northernmost area of Antarctica by the Indian Ocean and around the area of the Antarctic Circle, a small piece of southernmost Tasmania with Hobart in it, most all of New Zealand's South Island and a small part of Wellington on North Island, the nearby Antipodes, Chatham Islands and Macquarrie Island. It also included the southernmost areas of the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans.

The eclipse started at sunrise around the area of the South Orkney Islands and finished at sunset in New Zealand.

The eclipse showed up to 45% obscuration in the area of the greatest eclipse which occurred at sunset.

in Tasmania and southeastern Australia and finished at sunset at the Pacific and a tiny part of Western Antarctica. The greatest eclipse was in the Pacific Ocean hundreds of miles (or kilometers) north of Antarctica at 68.9 S & 124.3 E at 7:12 UTC (11:12 AM local time on January 20).^[1]

The subsolar marking was in the Indian Ocean around the Tropic of Capricorn and offshore from the Agalega Islands.

Eclipse details

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]

January 21, 1852 Solar Eclipse Times
Event	Time (UTC)
First Penumbral External Contact	1852 January 21 at 05:32:16.3 UTC
Equatorial Conjunction	1852 January 21 at 06:54:39.4 UTC
Greatest Eclipse	1852 January 21 at 07:12:15.7 UTC
Ecliptic Conjunction	1852 January 21 at 07:26:51.7 UTC
Last Penumbral External Contact	1852 January 21 at 08:52:28.0 UTC

January 21, 1852 Solar Eclipse Parameters
Parameter	Value
Eclipse Magnitude	0.45774
Eclipse Obscuration	0.33832
Gamma	−1.29485
Sun Right Ascension	20h10m41.9s
Sun Declination	-20°03'55.8"
Sun Semi-Diameter	16'15.0"
Sun Equatorial Horizontal Parallax	08.9"
Moon Right Ascension	20h11m18.5s
Moon Declination	-21°15'36.8"
Moon Semi-Diameter	15'13.9"
Moon Equatorial Horizontal Parallax	0°55'54.1"
ΔT	7.1 s

Eclipse season

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.

Eclipse season of January 1852
January 7 Ascending node (full moon)	January 21 Descending node (new moon)

Total lunar eclipse Lunar Saros 122	Partial solar eclipse Solar Saros 148

Related eclipses

Solar eclipses of 1848–1852

This eclipse is a member of a semester series. An eclipse in a semester series of solar eclipses repeats approximately every 177 days and 4 hours (a semester) at alternating nodes of the Moon's orbit.^[3]

The partial solar eclipses on April 3, 1848 and September 27, 1848 occur in the previous lunar year eclipse set, and the solar eclipses on June 17, 1852 (partial) and December 11, 1852 (total) occur in the next lunar year eclipse set.

Solar eclipse series sets from 1848 to 1852
Descending node			Ascending node
Saros	Map	Gamma	Saros	Map	Gamma
108	March 5, 1848 Partial	1.3950	113	August 28, 1848 Partial	−1.5475
118	February 23, 1849 Annular	0.7475	123	August 18, 1849 Total	−0.7343
128	February 12, 1850 Annular	0.0503	133	August 7, 1850 Total	0.0215
138	February 1, 1851 Annular	−0.6413	143	July 28, 1851 Total	0.7644
148	January 21, 1852 Partial	−1.2948

Saros 148

This eclipse is a part of Saros series 148, repeating every 18 years, 11 days, and containing 75 events. The series started with a partial solar eclipse on September 21, 1653. It contains annular eclipses on April 29, 2014 and May 9, 2032; a hybrid eclipse on May 20, 2050; and total eclipses from May 31, 2068 through August 3, 2771. The series ends at member 75 as a partial eclipse on December 12, 2987. Its eclipses are tabulated in three columns; every third eclipse in the same column is one exeligmos apart, so they all cast shadows over approximately the same parts of the Earth.

The longest duration of annularity will be produced by member 22 at 22 seconds (by default) on May 9, 2032, and the longest duration of totality will be produced by member 54 at 5 minutes, 23 seconds on April 26, 2609. All eclipses in this series occur at the Moon’s descending node of orbit.^[4]

Series members 10–31 occur between 1801 and 2200:
10	11	12
December 30, 1815	January 9, 1834	January 21, 1852
13	14	15
January 31, 1870	February 11, 1888	February 23, 1906
16	17	18
March 5, 1924	March 16, 1942	March 27, 1960
19	20	21
April 7, 1978	April 17, 1996	April 29, 2014
22	23	24
May 9, 2032	May 20, 2050	May 31, 2068
25	26	27
June 11, 2086	June 22, 2104	July 4, 2122
28	29	30
July 14, 2140	July 25, 2158	August 4, 2176
31
August 16, 2194

Metonic series

The metonic series repeats eclipses every 19 years (6939.69 days), lasting about 5 cycles. Eclipses occur in nearly the same calendar date. In addition, the octon subseries repeats 1/5 of that or every 3.8 years (1387.94 days). All eclipses in this table occur at the Moon's descending node.

24 eclipse events between August 28, 1802 and August 28, 1859
August 27–28	June 16	April 3–4	January 20–21	November 9
122	124	126	128	130
August 28, 1802	June 16, 1806	April 4, 1810	January 21, 1814	November 9, 1817
132	134	136	138	140
August 27, 1821	June 16, 1825	April 3, 1829	January 20, 1833	November 9, 1836
142	144	146	148	150
August 27, 1840	June 16, 1844	April 3, 1848	January 21, 1852	November 9, 1855
152
August 28, 1859

Tritos series

This eclipse is a part of a tritos cycle, repeating at alternating nodes every 135 synodic months (≈ 3986.63 days, or 11 years minus 1 month). Their appearance and longitude are irregular due to a lack of synchronization with the anomalistic month (period of perigee), but groupings of 3 tritos cycles (≈ 33 years minus 3 months) come close (≈ 434.044 anomalistic months), so eclipses are similar in these groupings.

Series members between 1801 and 1928
May 25, 1808 (Saros 144)	April 24, 1819 (Saros 145)	March 24, 1830 (Saros 146)	February 21, 1841 (Saros 147)	January 21, 1852 (Saros 148)
December 21, 1862 (Saros 149)	November 20, 1873 (Saros 150)	October 19, 1884 (Saros 151)	September 18, 1895 (Saros 152)	August 20, 1906 (Saros 153)
July 19, 1917 (Saros 154)	June 17, 1928 (Saros 155)

Inex series

This eclipse is a part of the long period inex cycle, repeating at alternating nodes, every 358 synodic months (≈ 10,571.95 days, or 29 years minus 20 days). Their appearance and longitude are irregular due to a lack of synchronization with the anomalistic month (period of perigee). However, groupings of 3 inex cycles (≈ 87 years minus 2 months) comes close (≈ 1,151.02 anomalistic months), so eclipses are similar in these groupings.

Series members between 1801 and 2200
February 11, 1823 (Saros 147)	January 21, 1852 (Saros 148)	December 31, 1880 (Saros 149)
December 12, 1909 (Saros 150)	November 21, 1938 (Saros 151)	November 2, 1967 (Saros 152)
October 12, 1996 (Saros 153)	September 21, 2025 (Saros 154)	September 2, 2054 (Saros 155)
August 13, 2083 (Saros 156)	July 23, 2112 (Saros 157)	July 3, 2141 (Saros 158)
June 14, 2170 (Saros 159)	May 24, 2199 (Saros 160)