Solar Eclipse Prime Page
Annular Solar Eclipse of 2003 May 31
Fred Espenak
Introduction
The Annular Solar Eclipse of 2003 May 31 is visible from the following geographic regions:
- Partial Eclipse: Europe, Asia, northwest North America
- Annular Eclipse: Iceland, Greenland
The map to the right depicts the geographic regions of eclipse visibility. Click on the map to enlarge it. For an explanation of the features appearing in the map, see Key to Solar Eclipse Maps.
The instant of greatest eclipse takes place on 2003 May 31 at 04:09:23 TD (04:08:18 UT1). This is 2.6 days after the Moon reaches apogee. During the eclipse, the Sun is in the constellation Taurus. The synodic month in which the eclipse takes place has a Brown Lunation Number of 995.
The eclipse belongs to Saros 147 and is number 22 of 80 eclipses in the series. All eclipses in this series occur at the Moons ascending node. The Moon moves southward with respect to the node with each succeeding eclipse in the series and gamma decreases.
This annular eclipse is unsual in that it does NOT have a northern path limit. Instead, one edge of the antumbral shadow falls off into space throughout the eclipse. Gamma has a value of 0.9960.
The annular solar eclipse of 2003 May 31 is preceded two weeks earlier by a total lunar eclipse on 2003 May 16.
These eclipses all take place during a single eclipse season.
The eclipse predictions are given in both Terrestrial Dynamical Time (TD) and Universal Time (UT1). The parameter ΔT is used to convert between these two times (i.e., UT1 = TD - ΔT). ΔT has a value of 64.4 seconds for this eclipse.
The following links provide maps and data for the eclipse.
- Orthographic Map: Annular Solar Eclipse of 2003 May 31 - detailed map of eclipse visibility
- Animated Map: Annular Solar Eclipse of 2003 May 31 - animated map of the Moon's shadows across Earth
- Google Map: Annular Solar Eclipse of 2003 May 31 - interactive map of the eclipse path
- Path Table: Annular Solar Eclipse of 2003 May 31 - coordinates of the central line and path limits
- Circumstances Table: Annular Solar Eclipse of 2003 May 31 - eclipse times for hundreds of cities
- Saros 147 Table - data for all eclipses in the Saros series
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The tables below contain detailed predictions and additional information on the Annular Solar Eclipse of 2003 May 31 .