Solar eclipse of April 19, 1939

An annular solar eclipse occurred on April 19, 1939. 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.

Solar eclipse of April 19, 1939
Map
Type of eclipse
Nature	Annular
Gamma	0.9388
Magnitude	0.9731
Maximum eclipse
Duration	109 sec (1 m 49 s)
Coordinates	73.1°N 129.1°W
Max. width of band	285 km (177 mi)
Times (UTC)
Greatest eclipse	16:45:53
References
Saros	118 (64 of 72)
Catalog # (SE5000)	9373

This annular eclipse is notable in that the path of annularity passed over the North Pole. Land covered in the path include part of Alaska, Canada, and Franz Josef Land, Ushakov Island and Vize Island in the Soviet Union (today's Russia). This was the umbral eclipse number 56 out of 57 of Solar Saros 118, this is the last central solar eclipse, and the penultimate umbral eclipse, with last (ultimate) in 1957.

Related eclipses

Solar eclipses 1939–1942

This eclipse is a member of a semester series. An eclipse 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.[1]

Solar eclipse series sets from 1939–1942
Descending node			Ascending node
Saros	Map		Saros	Map
118	April 19, 1939 Annular		123	October 12, 1939 Total
128	April 7, 1940 Annular		133	October 1, 1940 Total
138	March 27, 1941 Annular		143	September 21, 1941 Total
148	March 16, 1942 Partial		153	September 10, 1942 Partial
The partial solar eclipse on August 12, 1942 occurs in the next lunar year eclipse set.

Saros 118

It is a part of Saros cycle 118, repeating every 18 years, 11 days, containing 72 events. The series started with partial solar eclipse on May 24, 803 AD. It contains total eclipses from August 19, 947 AD through October 25, 1650, hybrid eclipses on November 4, 1668 and November 15, 1686, and annular eclipses from November 27, 1704 through April 30, 1957. The series ends at member 72 as a partial eclipse on July 15, 2083. The longest duration of total was 6 minutes, 59 seconds on May 16, 1398.

Series members 62–72 occur between 1901 and 2083:
62	63	64
Mar 29, 1903	Apr 8, 1921	Apr 19, 1939
65	66	67
Apr 30, 1957	May 11, 1975	May 21, 1993
68	69	70
Jun 1, 2011	Jun 12, 2029	Jun 23, 2047
71	72
Jul 3, 2065	Jul 15, 2083

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). All eclipses in this table occur at the Moon's descending node.

22 eclipse events between September 12, 1931 and July 1, 2011.
September 11-12	June 30-July 1	April 17-19	February 4-5	November 22-23
114	116	118	120	122
September 12, 1931	June 30, 1935	April 19, 1939	February 4, 1943	November 23, 1946
124	126	128	130	132
September 12, 1950	June 30, 1954	April 19, 1958	February 5, 1962	November 23, 1965
134	136	138	140	142
September 11, 1969	June 30, 1973	April 18, 1977	February 4, 1981	November 22, 1984
144	146	148	150	152
September 11, 1988	June 30, 1992	April 17, 1996	February 5, 2000	November 23, 2003
154	156	158	160	162
September 11, 2007	July 1, 2011	April 18, 2015	February 4, 2019	November 23, 2022

Notes

1. van Gent, R.H. "Solar- and Lunar-Eclipse Predictions from Antiquity to the Present". A Catalogue of Eclipse Cycles. Utrecht University. Retrieved 6 October 2018.

References

• Earth visibility chart and eclipse statistics Eclipse Predictions by Fred Espenak, NASA/GSFC
  • Google interactive map
  • Besselian elements