Nature Annular Magnitude 0.9666 Max. width of band 131 km (81 mi) Start date December 4, 1983 | Gamma 0.4015 Duration 241 sec (4 m 1 s) Greatest eclipse 12:31:15 | |
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An annular solar eclipse occurred on December 4, 1983. 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.
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Solar eclipses of 1982-1985
Each member 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.
Note: Partial solar eclipses on January 25, 1982 and July 20, 1982 occur in the previous lunar year eclipse set.
Saros 132
It is a part of Saros cycle 132, repeating every 18 years, 11 days, containing 71 events. The series started with partial solar eclipse on August 13, 1208. It contains annular eclipses from March 17, 1569 through March 12, 2146, hybrid on March 23, 2164 and April 3, 2183 and total eclipses from April 14, 2200 through June 19, 2308. The series ends at member 71 as a partial eclipse on September 25, 2470. The longest duration of annular was 6 minutes, 56 seconds on May 9, 1641, and totality will be 2 minutes, 14 seconds on June 8, 2290.
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.
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).