Solar eclipse of December 2, 1937

Solar eclipse of December 2, 1937
Solar eclipse of December 2, 1937
	Map
Type of eclipse
Nature	Annular
Gamma	0.4389
Magnitude	0.9184
Maximum eclipse
Duration	720 s (12 min 0 s)
Coordinates	4°00′N 167°48′W / 4°N 167.8°W
Max. width of band	344 km (214 mi)
Times (UTC)
Greatest eclipse	23:05:45
References
Saros	141 (19 of 70)
Catalog # (SE5000)	9370

An annular solar eclipse occurred at the Moon's ascending node of orbit on Thursday, December 2, 1937, with a magnitude of 0.9184. 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. Annularity was visible from Ogasawara, Tokyo and South Seas Mandate (the part now belonging to Marshall Islands) in Japan, and Gilbert and Ellice Islands (the part now belonging to Kiribati).

The duration of annularity at maximum eclipse (closest to but slightly shorter than the longest duration) was 12 minutes, 0.33 seconds in the Pacific Ocean. It was the longest annular solar eclipse since December 25, 1628, but the Solar eclipse of December 14, 1955 lasted longer.^[1]

Related eclipses[edit]

Solar eclipses of 1935–1938[edit]

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.^[2]

The partial solar eclipses on February 3, 1935 and July 30, 1935 occur in the previous lunar year eclipse set.

Solar eclipse series sets from 1935 to 1938
Ascending node			Descending node
Saros	Map	Gamma	Saros	Map	Gamma
111	January 5, 1935 Partial	−1.5381	116	June 30, 1935 Partial	1.3623
121	December 25, 1935 Annular	−0.9228	126	June 19, 1936 Total	0.5389
131	December 13, 1936 Annular	−0.2493	136 Totality in Kanton Island, Kiribati	June 8, 1937 Total	−0.2253
141	December 2, 1937 Annular	0.4389	146	May 29, 1938 Total	−0.9607
151	November 21, 1938 Partial	1.1077

Saros 141[edit]

This eclipse is a part of Saros series 141, repeating every 18 years, 11 days, and containing 70 events. The series started with a partial solar eclipse on May 19, 1613. It contains annular eclipses from August 4, 1739 through October 14, 2640. There are no hybrid or total eclipses in this set. The series ends at member 70 as a partial eclipse on June 13, 2857. Its eclipses are tabulated in three columns; every third eclipse in the same column is one exeligmos apart, so they all cast shadows over approximately the same parts of the Earth.

The longest duration of annularity was produced by member 20 at 12 minutes, 9 seconds on December 14, 1955. All eclipses in this series occur at the Moon’s ascending node of orbit.^[3]

Series members 12–33 occur between 1801 and 2200:
12	13	14
September 17, 1811	September 28, 1829	October 9, 1847
15	16	17
October 19, 1865	October 30, 1883	November 11, 1901
18	19	20
November 22, 1919	December 2, 1937	December 14, 1955
21	22	23
December 24, 1973	January 4, 1992	January 15, 2010
24	25	26
January 26, 2028	February 5, 2046	February 17, 2064
27	28	29
February 27, 2082	March 10, 2100	March 22, 2118
30	31	32
April 1, 2136	April 12, 2154	April 23, 2172
33
May 4, 2190

Tritos series[edit]

This eclipse is a part of a tritos cycle, repeating at alternating nodes every 135 synodic months (≈ 3986.63 days, or 11 years minus 1 month). Their appearance and longitude are irregular due to a lack of synchronization with the anomalistic month (period of perigee), but groupings of 3 tritos cycles (≈ 33 years minus 3 months) come close (≈ 434.044 anomalistic months), so eclipses are similar in these groupings.

Series members between 1901 and 2100
March 6, 1905 (Saros 138)	February 3, 1916 (Saros 139)	January 3, 1927 (Saros 140)
December 2, 1937 (Saros 141)	November 1, 1948 (Saros 142)	October 2, 1959 (Saros 143)
August 31, 1970 (Saros 144)	July 31, 1981 (Saros 145)	June 30, 1992 (Saros 146)
May 31, 2003 (Saros 147)	April 29, 2014 (Saros 148)	March 29, 2025 (Saros 149)
February 27, 2036 (Saros 150)	January 26, 2047 (Saros 151)	December 26, 2057 (Saros 152)
November 24, 2068 (Saros 153)	October 24, 2079 (Saros 154)	September 23, 2090 (Saros 155)