A total solar eclipse occurred at the Moon's descending node of orbit on Friday, August 1, 2008, with a magnitude of 1.0394. 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 total solar eclipse occurs when the Moon's apparent diameter is larger than the Sun's, blocking all direct sunlight, turning day into darkness. Totality occurs in a narrow path across Earth's surface, with the partial solar eclipse visible over a surrounding region thousands of kilometres wide. Occurring about 2.4 days after perigee (on July 30, 2008, at 0:20 UTC), the Moon's apparent diameter was larger.
The eclipse was visible from a narrow corridor through northern Canada (Nunavut), Greenland, central Russia, eastern Kazakhstan, western Mongolia and China. Visible north of the Arctic Circle, it belonged to the so-called midnight sun eclipses. The largest city in its path was Novosibirsk in Russia. A partial eclipse could be seen from the much broader path of the Moon's penumbra, including northern Canada, Greenland, and most of Europe and Asia.
The moon's apparent diameter was 1 arcminute, 17.8 arcseconds (77.8 arcseconds) larger than the annular solar eclipse of February 7, 2008.
It was described by observers as "special for its colours around the horizon. There were wonderful oranges and reds all around, the clouds lit up, some dark in silhouette, some golden, glowing yellowy-orange in the distance. You could see the shadow approaching against the clouds and then rushing away as it left."Dr John Mason describing the eclipse directly after observing it.
Start of eclipse: Canada and Greenland Animated path
The eclipse began in the far north of Canada in Nunavut at 09:21 UT, the zone of totality being 206 km wide, and lasting for 1 minute 30 seconds. The path of the eclipse then headed north-east, crossing over northern Greenland and reaching the northernmost latitude of 83° 47′ at 09:38 UT before dipping down into Russia.
The path of totality touched the northeast corner of Kvitøya, an uninhabited Norwegian island in the Svalbard archipelago, at 09:47 UT.
Greatest eclipse: Russia The eclipse reached the Russian mainland at 10:10 UT, with a path 232 km wide and a duration of 2 minutes 26 seconds. The greatest eclipse occurred shortly after, at 10:21:07 UT at coordinates (close to Nadym), when the path was 237 km wide, and the duration was 2 minutes 27 seconds. Cities in the path of the total eclipse included Megion, Nizhnevartovsk, Strezhevoy, Novosibirsk and Barnaul. Around 10,000 tourists were present in Novosibirsk, the largest city to experience the eclipse. For Gorno-Altaysk the eclipse was the second consecutive total solar eclipse after the March 2006 eclipse.Eclipses and Transits Visible in Gorno-Altaysk. timeanddate.com
Conclusion: Mongolia and China The path of the eclipse then moved south-east, crossing into Mongolia and just clipping Kazakhstan at around 10:58 UT. The path here was 252 km wide, but the duration decreased to 2 minutes 10 seconds. The path then ran down the China-Mongolia border, ending in China at 11:18 UT, with an eclipse lasting 1 minute 27 seconds at sunset. The total eclipse finished at 11:21 UT. The total eclipse passed over Altay City, Hami and Jiuquan. Around 10,000 people were gathered to watch the eclipse in Hami.
Partial eclipse A partial eclipse was seen from the much broader path of the Moon's penumbra, including the north east coast of North America and most of Europe and Asia. In London, England, the partial eclipse began at 09:33 BST, with a maximum eclipse of 12% at 10:18 BST, before concluding at 11:05 BST. At Edinburgh the partial eclipse was 23.5%, whilst it was 36% in Lerwick in the Shetland Isles.
LTU 1111 German charter airline LTU, now trading as Air Berlin, operated a special flight from Düsseldorf to the North Pole to observe the eclipse. Flight number LT 1111 spent over 11 hours in the air, returning to base at 6pm after flying a planeload of eclipse chasers, scientists, journalists and TV crews to watch the celestial event. The route also included a low-level sightseeing tour of Svalbard before the eclipse and the magnetic pole afterwards.
Eclipse timing Places experiencing total eclipse Solar Eclipse of August 1, 2008(Local Times)Country or territory City or placeStart of partial eclipseStart of total eclipseMaximum eclipseEnd of total eclipseEnd of partial eclipseDuration of totality (min:s)Duration of eclipse (hr:min)Maximum magnitude Grise Fiord 04:31:16 05:24:22 05:25:11 05:25:59 06:20:12 1:37 1:49 1.0104 Alert 04:36:14 05:32:09 05:32:32 05:32:55 06:29:37 0:46 1:53 1.0017 Nadym 15:16:48 16:20:18 16:21:32 16:22:46 17:23:37 2:28 2:07 1.0191 Noyabrsk 15:22:19 16:25:50 16:27:01 16:28:13 17:28:44 2:23 2:06 1.0157 Nizhnevartovsk 15:26:45 16:30:27 16:31:39 16:32:50 17:33:14 2:23 2:06 1.016 Novosibirsk 16:41:25 17:44:09 17:45:19 17:46:28 18:45:17 2:19 2:04 1.0166 Barnaul 16:45:06 17:47:40 17:48:49 17:49:56 18:48:27 2:16 2:03 1.0162 Gorno-Altaysk 16:49:00 17:50:58 17:52:04 17:53:10 18:51:01 2:12 2:02 1.015 Khovd 16:59:24 18:00:29 18:00:32 18:00:35 18:57:30 0:06 1:58 1.0003 Xinmi 18:25:55 19:18:31 19:18:52 19:19:13 19:28:21 (sunset) 0:42 1:02 1.002 Luoyang 18:25:53 19:18:32 19:19:07 19:19:40 19:32:25 (sunset) 1:08 1:07 1.0054 Xi'an 18:26:46 19:20:34 19:20:52 19:21:09 19:45:43 (sunset) 0:35 1:19 1.0015References:
Places experiencing partial eclipse Solar Eclipse of August 1, 2008(Local Times)Country or territory City or placeStart of partial eclipseMaximum eclipseEnd of partial eclipseDuration of eclipse (hr:min)Maximum coverage Nuuk 06:11:23 07:04:03 07:59:06 1:48 61.71% Coral Harbour 03:41:11 (sunrise) 04:10:29 05:02:39 1:21 82.77% Reykjavík 08:14:46 09:10:47 10:09:22 1:55 49.33% Pond Inlet 04:25:53 05:19:15 06:14:04 1:48 94.42% Pituffik 05:28:23 06:23:22 07:19:39 1:51 96.76% Qaanaaq 06:29:42 07:24:50 08:21:10 1:51 98.40% Resolute 03:33:09 04:25:49 05:19:30 1:46 99.88% Longyearbyen 10:39:24 11:41:09 12:43:18 2:04 92.73% Kiruna 10:38:12 11:42:56 12:48:07 2:10 67.10% Rovaniemi 11:42:11 12:47:50 13:53:29 2:11 66.44% Belushya Guba 12:57:16 14:02:12 15:05:52 2:09 95.25% Moscow 13:02:04 14:09:26 15:14:56 2:13 48.66% Omsk 16:35:01 17:41:27 18:43:48 2:09 92.76% Astana 15:40:52 16:47:55 17:50:24 2:10 84.98% Ulaanbaatar 18:04:06 19:00:19 19:53:15 1:49 86.74% Bishkek 16:00:08 17:05:36 18:05:52 2:06 76.66% Almaty 16:00:50 17:05:50 18:05:43 2:05 80.68% Tashkent 15:00:00 16:06:00 17:06:39 2:07 65.78% Beijing 18:17:20 19:10:09 19:27:59 (sunset) 1:11 90.21% Dushanbe 15:06:01 16:11:06 17:10:44 2:05 60.01% Kabul 14:46:03 15:49:08 16:46:48 2:01 52.99% Islamabad 16:19:56 17:22:23 18:19:29 2:00 57.69% New Delhi 16:03:27 17:02:41 17:56:54 1:53 53.80% Hanoi 17:48:15 18:32:43 18:35:06 (sunset) 0:47 65.19% Kathmandu 16:22:14 17:20:03 18:13:09 1:51 63.27% Thimphu 16:38:20 17:35:16 18:27:42 1:49 68.17% Dhaka 16:45:43 17:40:38 18:31:18 1:46 60.57% Vientiane 17:54:14 18:41:11 18:43:31 (sunset) 0:49 57.71% Bangkok 18:02:20 18:43:01 18:45:58 (sunset) 0:44 43.22% Yangon 17:28:07 18:18:03 18:37:38 (sunset) 1:10 49.59%References:
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.
+August 1, 2008 Solar Eclipse Times Event Time (UTC) First Penumbral External Contact 2008 August 1 at 08:05:11.5 UTC First Umbral External Contact 2008 August 1 at 09:22:12.6 UTC First Central Line 2008 August 1 at 09:23:43.3 UTC First Umbral Internal Contact 2008 August 1 at 09:25:15.6 UTC Equatorial Conjunction 2008 August 1 at 09:48:26.9 UTC Ecliptic Conjunction 2008 August 1 at 10:13:39.0 UTC Greatest Duration 2008 August 1 at 10:20:17.1 UTC Greatest Eclipse 2008 August 1 at 10:22:12.3 UTC Last Umbral Internal Contact 2008 August 1 at 11:19:33.2 UTC Last Central Line 2008 August 1 at 11:21:03.1 UTC Last Umbral External Contact 2008 August 1 at 11:22:31.3 UTC Last Penumbral External Contact 2008 August 1 at 12:39:31.7 UTC
+August 1, 2008 Solar Eclipse Parameters Parameter Value Eclipse Magnitude 1.03942 Eclipse Obscuration 1.08040 Gamma 0.83070 Sun Right Ascension 08h47m54.1s Sun Declination +17°51'56.4" Sun Semi-Diameter 15'45.5" Sun Equatorial Horizontal Parallax 08.7" Moon Right Ascension 08h49m08.8s Moon Declination +18°38'01.6" Moon Semi-Diameter 16'14.1" Moon Equatorial Horizontal Parallax 0°59'34.8" ΔT 65.6 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 August 2008 August 1Descending node (new moon) August 16Ascending node (full moon) Total solar eclipseSolar Saros 126 Partial lunar eclipseLunar Saros 138
Related eclipses Eclipses in 2008 An annular solar eclipse on February 7. A total lunar eclipse on February 21. A total solar eclipse on August 1. A partial lunar eclipse on August 16.
Metonic Preceded by: Solar eclipse of October 14, 2004 Followed by: Solar eclipse of May 20, 2012
Tzolkinex Preceded by: Solar eclipse of June 21, 2001 Followed by: Solar eclipse of September 13, 2015
Half-Saros Preceded by: Lunar eclipse of July 28, 1999 Followed by: Lunar eclipse of August 7, 2017
Tritos Preceded by: Solar eclipse of September 2, 1997 Followed by: Solar eclipse of July 2, 2019
Solar Saros 126 Preceded by: Solar eclipse of July 22, 1990 Followed by: Solar eclipse of August 12, 2026
Inex Preceded by: Solar eclipse of August 22, 1979 Followed by: Solar eclipse of July 13, 2037
Triad Preceded by: Solar eclipse of October 1, 1921 Followed by: Solar eclipse of June 2, 2095
Solar eclipses of 2008–2011
Saros 126
Metonic series
Tritos series
Inex series
Notes
References
Google Map Further reading A study of the gamma-ray flux during the total solar eclipse of 1 August 2008 at Novosibirsk, Russia, Pranaba K Nayak et al., Astroparticle Physics Volume 32, Issue 6, January 2010, Pages 286-293, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.astropartphys.2009.09.006 External links Photos: Russian solar eclipse Russian scientist observed eclipse Spaceweather.com solar eclipse gallery Total Solar Eclipse, August 1, 2008, from Russia by Jay Pasachoff Prof. Druckmüller's eclipse photography site. Mongolia Prof. Druckmüller's eclipse photography site. Russia The 2008 Eclipse in Russia Astronomy.com Eclipse trip images from Russia Memories, video and images of the eclipse by Crayford Manor House Astronomical Society The 2008 Eclipse in Russia APOD 8/5/2008, A Total Solar Eclipse Over China, wide sky from near Barkol in Xinjiang, China APOD 8/7/2008, At the Sun's Edge, Totality from Novosibirsk, Russia APOD 8/8/2008, The Crown of the Sun, totality with corona from Kochenevo, Russia APOD 9/20/2008,A Darkened Sky, totality with wide corona from Mongolia Webcast of the eclipse from northwest China University of North Dakota's Live Webcast from China
Video Video from Altai, featured on CNN