An annular solar eclipse occurred on Monday, October 3, 2005 with a magnitude of 0.958. 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. An annular eclipse appears as a partial eclipse over a region of the Earth thousands of kilometres wide. Occurring only 4.8 days after apogee, the Moon's apparent diameter was smaller. It was visible from a narrow corridor through the Iberian peninsula and Africa. A partial eclipse was seen from the much broader path of the Moon's penumbra, including all of Europe, Africa and southwestern Asia. The Sun was 96% covered in a moderate annular eclipse, lasting 4 minutes and 32 seconds and covering a broad path up to 162 km wide. It was the 43rd eclipse of the 134th Saros cycle, which began with a partial eclipse on June 22, 1248 and will conclude with a partial eclipse on August 6, 2510. The path of the eclipse began in the North Atlantic ocean at 08:41 universal time. The antumbra reached Madrid, Spain at 08:56 UT, lasting four minutes and eleven seconds and 90% of the Sun was covered by the Moon. The antumbra reached Algiers at 09:05 UT, then passed through Tunisia and Libya before heading southeast through Sudan, Kenya and Somalia. The shadow then moved out over the Indian Ocean until it terminated at sunset, 12:22 UT. The maximum eclipse duration occurred in central Sudan at 10:31:42 UT, where it lasted for 4m 31s when the Sun was 71° above the horizon. The motion of the shadow was supersonic and it generated gravity waves that were detectable as disturbances in the ionosphere. These gravity waves originate in the thermosphere at an altitude of about 180 km. Because of the obscuration of solar radiation, the ionization level dropped by 70% during the eclipse. The eclipse caused a 1–1.4 K drop in the temperature of the ionosphere.
The tables below contain detailed predictions and additional information on the Annular Solar Eclipse of 3 October 2005.
Sun right ascension: 12.63 Sun declination: -4.1 Sun diameter: 1918.2 arcseconds Moon right ascension: 12.64 Moon declination: -3.8 Moon diameter: 1810.4 arcseconds
Geocentric Libration of Moon
Latitude: 3.9 degrees south Longitude: 0.4 degrees west Direction: 21.5
Images
Image:Partial_Eclipse_Chennai_Oct2005.jpg|Chennai, India : Partial File:SE2005Oct03A.gif|Animated path File:Sombra del Eclipse anular.JPG|Eclipse shadows from a tree
