Annular Solar Eclipse of September 1, 2016

A large annular eclipse will cover 97% of the Sun on Thursday, September 1, 2016.

The whole event will last from 06:13 – 12:00 UTC and will be visible across central Africa southwards to Madagascar and into the Indian Ocean. The partial eclipse will be visible across most of Africa and parts of the Middle East.

The instant of greatest eclipse will take place at 09:06 UTC on September 1, 5.4 days before the Moon reaches apogee and 10 days after perigee. During the eclipse, the Sun is in the constellation Leo.

At the point of maximum eclipse, it will last 3 minutes and 6 seconds.

Video courtesy Larry Koehn

This eclipse belongs to Saros 135 and is number 39 of 71 eclipses in the series. All eclipses in this series occur at the Moon’s ascending node. The Moon moves southward with respect to the node with each succeeding eclipse in the series and gamma decreases.

This annular solar eclipse is followed two weeks later by a penumbral lunar eclipse on September 16, 2016.

Image credit: Fred Espenak, NASA/GSFC

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 kilometers wide.

​Links for the Annular Solar Eclipse of September 1, 2016:

Featured image: Annular Solar Eclipse of May 20, 2012. Credit: Toshiyuki IMAI

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