An annular solar eclipse occurred at the Moon’s descending node of orbit on Thursday, December 26, 2019,[1] with a magnitude of 0.9701. A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby totally or partly obscuring 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. The Moon's apparent diameter was near the average diameter because it occurred 7.3 days after perigee (on December 18, 2019, at 20:25 UTC) and 6.2 days before apogee (on January 2, 2020, at 1:30 UTC).[2]
Annularity was visible in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Oman, southern India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, the Northern Mariana Islands, and Guam. A partial eclipse was visible for parts of East Africa, Asia, and northern Australia.
It was the last solar eclipse of 2019. The central path of the 2019 annular eclipse passed through the Saudi Arabian peninsula, southern India, Sumatra, Borneo, Philippines and Guam. A partial eclipse was visible thousands of kilometers wide from the central path. It covered small parts of Eastern Europe, much of Asia, North and West Australia, Eastern Africa, the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean. The eclipse started with an antumbra having a magnitude of 0.96; it stretched 164 kilometers wide, and traveled eastwards at an average rate of 1.1 kilometers per second. The longest duration of annularity was 3 minutes and 40 seconds, at 5.30 UT1 occurring in the South China Sea (0°45'54.0"N 105°29'06.0"E).The eclipse began in Saudi Arabia about 220 kilometers northeast of Riyadh at 03:43 UT1 and ended in Guam at 06:59.4 UT1. It reached India near Kannur, Kerala, at 03:56 UT1. The shadow reached the southeast coast of India at 04:04 UT1. Traveling through northern Sri Lanka, it headed into the Bay of Bengal. The next main visible places were Palau (Malaysia), Sumatra and Singapore. It then passed through the South China Sea, crossed Borneo and the Celebes Sea, the Philippines archipelago and then headed towards the western Pacific. The antumbral shadow encountered Guam at 6:56 UT1 and rose back into space.
Shown below are two tables displaying details about this particular solar eclipse. The first table outlines times at which the moon's penumbra or umbra attains the specific parameter, and the second table describes various other parameters pertaining to this eclipse.[3]
| First Penumbral External Contact | 2019 December 26 at 02:31:00.8 UTC | |
| First Umbral External Contact | 2019 December 26 at 03:35:41.7 UTC | |
| First Central Line | 2019 December 26 at 03:37:13.6 UTC | |
| First Umbral Internal Contact | 2019 December 26 at 03:38:45.8 UTC | |
| First Penumbral Internal Contact | 2019 December 26 at 05:02:35.5 UTC | |
| Ecliptic Conjunction | 2019 December 26 at 05:14:17.0 UTC | |
| Equatorial Conjunction | 2019 December 26 at 05:15:43.8 UTC | |
| Greatest Eclipse | 2019 December 26 at 05:18:53.1 UTC | |
| Greatest Duration | 2019 December 26 at 05:29:39.4 UTC | |
| Last Penumbral Internal Contact | 2019 December 26 at 05:35:14.2 UTC | |
| Last Umbral Internal Contact | 2019 December 26 at 06:59:00.2 UTC | |
| Last Central Line | 2019 December 26 at 07:00:35.4 UTC | |
| Last Umbral External Contact | 2019 December 26 at 07:02:10.4 UTC | |
| Last Penumbral External Contact | 2019 December 26 at 08:06:53.4 UTC |
| Eclipse Magnitude | 0.97010 | |
| Eclipse Obscuration | 0.94110 | |
| Gamma | 0.41351 | |
| Sun Right Ascension | 18h17m56.7s | |
| Sun Declination | -23°22'19.2" | |
| Sun Semi-Diameter | 16'15.7" | |
| Sun Equatorial Horizontal Parallax | 08.9" | |
| Moon Right Ascension | 18h18m03.7s | |
| Moon Declination | -22°58'50.4" | |
| Moon Semi-Diameter | 15'33.0" | |
| Moon Equatorial Horizontal Parallax | 0°57'04.0" | |
| ΔT | 69.8 s |
See also: Eclipse cycle. This eclipse is part of an eclipse season, a period, roughly every six months, when eclipses occur. Only two (or occasionally three) eclipse seasons occur each year, and each season lasts about 35 days and repeats just short of six months (173 days) later; thus two full eclipse seasons always occur each year. Either two or three eclipses happen each eclipse season. In the sequence below, each eclipse is separated by a fortnight.
Astronomers Without Borders collected eclipse glasses for redistribution to Latin America and Asia for their 2019 eclipses from the Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017.