Solar-Eclipse Preview: August 11, 1999

By Fred Espenak

Adapted from Sky & Telescope, August 1996

The final total solar eclipse of the 20th century (there is none in 2000) is an event that Europeans have been waiting some 38 years for. Not since 1961 has the Moon's shadow touched the Continent. The path begins in the North Atlantic 300 kilometers south of Nova Scotia and quickly traverses the ocean. Southern England enjoys first landfall in Cornwall and parts of Devon. The centerline duration of this midmorning eclipse is 2 minutes as the Sun stands 45° above the horizon. Unfortunately, the probability of clear skies is only about 1 in 3.

Aug. 11, 1999, eclipse path (48K gif) This map shows the path of the Moon's shadow across the globe during the total solar eclipse of August 11, 1999. All illustrations courtesy the author.

The weather prospects do not change appreciably as the path crosses the English Channel and swings through northern France. Passing 20 km north of Paris, the City of Lights will be darkened by an eclipse of magnitude 0.994. Southernmost Belgium and Luxembourg also lie in the path, which continues into Germany. Stuttgart, just north of the centerline, enjoys a total eclipse of 2 minutes 17 seconds. The nearly 2 million citizens of Munich will also witness more than 2 minutes of totality, provided the winds of good fortune bring clear skies on eclipse day. Traveling through central Austria and Hungary, the shadow narrowly misses Vienna and Budapest. But Bucharest, Romania, stands squarely on the centerline just as the total eclipse reaches its greatest duration of 2 minutes 23 seconds.

eclipse in europe (53K gif) The path of totality for the August 11, 1999, solar eclipse will cut through the heart of central Europe, where millions of people will be well placed to view the event.

After paralleling the Romanian-Bulgarian border, the track crosses the Black Sea and diagonally bisects Turkey. Ankara lies 150 km south of the track and experiences a partial eclipse of magnitude 0.967. The path narrows and the duration drops as the shadow's trajectory takes it through Iran, Afghanistan, southern Pakistan, and central India, where it ends in the Bay of Bengal.

Although a detailed weather study for the 1999 eclipse is not yet available, a preliminary analysis shows a clearing trend through Eastern Europe that continues to improve in Turkey and becomes best in Iran. Sky & Telescope will provide more details for this important event as they become available.

For more information on total eclipses of the Sun, see NASA's Solar Eclipse Bulletins.

Fred Espenak is an astronomer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and one of the world's foremost experts at eclipse prediction and imaging.

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