Solar eclipse of December 4, 1983

Solar eclipse of December 4, 1983
Solar eclipse of December 4, 1983
	Map
Type of eclipse
Nature	Annular
Gamma	0.4015
Magnitude	0.9666
Maximum eclipse
Duration	241 sec (4 m 1 s)
Coordinates	0°54′N 4°42′W / 0.9°N 4.7°W
Max. width of band	131 km (81 mi)
Times (UTC)
Greatest eclipse	12:31:15
References
Saros	132 (44 of 71)
Catalog # (SE5000)	9473

An annular solar eclipse occurred at the Moon's descending node of the orbit on December 4, 1983. 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 in Cape Verde, Annobón Island of Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, the People's Republic of Congo (today's Republic of Congo), Zaire (today's Democratic Republic of Congo), northern Uganda, southern Sudan (today's South Sudan), northwestern Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia. The Sun's altitude was 66°. Occurring 6.5 days before apogee (Apogee on December 11, 1983), the Moon's apparent diameter was near the average diameter.

Related eclipses

Eclipses in 1983

A total solar eclipse at the Moon's ascending node of the orbit on Saturday, June 11th, 1983.
A partial lunar eclipse at the Moon's descending node of the orbit on Saturday, June 25th, 1983.
An annular solar eclipse at the Moon's descending node of the orbit on Sunday, December 04th, 1983.
A penumbral lunar eclipse at the Moon's ascending node of the orbit on Tuesday, December 20th, 1983.

Solar eclipses of 1982–1985

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]

Note: Partial solar eclipses on January 25, 1982 and July 20, 1982 occur in the previous lunar year eclipse set.

Solar eclipse series sets from 1982–1985
Ascending node			Descending node
Saros	Map	Gamma	Saros	Map	Gamma
117	1982 June 21 Partial	-1.21017	122	1982 December 15 Partial	1.12928
127	1983 June 11 Total	-0.49475	132	1983 December 4 Annular	0.40150
137	1984 May 30 Annular	0.27552	142 Partial from Gisborne, NZ	1984 November 22 Total	-0.31318
147	1985 May 19 Partial	1.07197	152	1985 November 12 Total	-0.97948

Saros 132

This eclipse is a part of Saros cycle 132, repeating every 18 years, 11 days, containing 71 events. The series started with partial solar eclipse on August 13, 1208. It contains annular eclipses from March 17, 1569 through March 12, 2146, hybrid on March 23, 2164 and April 3, 2183 and total eclipses from April 14, 2200 through June 19, 2308. The series ends at member 71 as a partial eclipse on September 25, 2470. The longest duration of annular was 6 minutes, 56 seconds on May 9, 1641, and totality will be 2 minutes, 14 seconds on June 8, 2290. All eclipses in this series occurs at the Moon’s descending node.

Series members 28–50 occur between 1690 and 2100:
28	29	30
June 11, 1695	June 22, 1713	July 4, 1731
31	32	33
July 14, 1749	July 25, 1767	August 5, 1785
34	35	36
August 17, 1803	August 27, 1821	September 7, 1839
37	38	39
September 18, 1857	September 29, 1875	October 9, 1893
40	41	42
October 22, 1911	November 1, 1929	November 12, 1947
43	44	45
November 23, 1965	December 4, 1983	December 14, 2001
46	47	48
December 26, 2019	January 5, 2038	January 16, 2056
49	50
January 27, 2074	February 7, 2092

Inex series

This eclipse is a part of the long period inex cycle, repeating at alternating nodes, every 358 synodic months (≈ 10,571.95 days, or 29 years minus 20 days). Their appearance and longitude are irregular due to a lack of synchronization with the anomalistic month (period of perigee). However, groupings of 3 inex cycles (≈ 87 years minus 2 months) comes close (≈ 1,151.02 anomalistic months), so eclipses are similar in these groupings.

Inex series members between 1901 and 2100:
January 14, 1926 (Saros 130)	December 25, 1954 (Saros 131)	December 4, 1983 (Saros 132)
November 13, 2012 (Saros 133)	October 25, 2041 (Saros 134)	October 4, 2070 (Saros 135)
September 14, 2099 (Saros 136)

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.

21 eclipse events, progressing from north to south between July 11, 1953 and July 11, 2029
July 10–12	April 29–30	February 15–16	December 4–5	September 21–23
116	118	120	122	124
July 11, 1953	April 30, 1957	February 15, 1961	December 4, 1964	September 22, 1968
126	128	130	132	134
July 10, 1972	April 29, 1976	February 16, 1980	December 4, 1983	September 23, 1987
136	138	140	142	144
July 11, 1991	April 29, 1995	February 16, 1999	December 4, 2002	September 22, 2006
146	148	150	152	154
July 11, 2010	April 29, 2014	February 15, 2018	December 4, 2021	September 21, 2025
156	158	160	162	164
July 11, 2029