ECLIPSES and other Astrological Events 2003.
Looking now towards the year 2003. This year has a very full and exciting astrological agenda. My comment at this stage is brief. There are four 'big' eclipses and a 'transit of Mercury'(see below), all but one visible to the UK sky gazers. Two Total Lunar eclipses occur across Taurus/Scorpio, one in the spring , one in the Fall, and a most unusual annular Solar Eclipse, in Gemini, 'a ring of fire sunrise' visible from north west Scotland on May 31st 2002. The unusual geometry of the Solar Eclipse of May 31st results in the eclipse shadow traveling westward. This eclipse is the first in its Saros to be 'a central eclipse'. We are still learning and noting this phenomena. It is a new concept to us.
The Transit of Mercury 2003.
On Wednesday, 2003 May 07, Mercury will transit the Sun for the first time since 1999. The entire event will be widely visible from the Europe, Africa and Asia . Japan Australia, and New Zealand will witness the beginning of the transit but the Sun will set before the event ends. Similarly, observers in western Africa, eastern North America and eastern South America will see the end of the event since the transit will already be in progress at sunrise from those regions.
This is the first of 14 transits of Mercury to take place during the 21st century. It's also the first transit to occur in the month of May in more than three decades. Mercury's transits occur in May or November, but in no other month, because the planet's orbit plane is inclined 7° to that of Earth, and the geometry is then favorable for an exact lineup. Moreover, Mercury reaches the aphelion point in its orbit (farthest from the Sun) on May 18th this year. Thus the planet shows a relatively large disk, 12.0" across on May 7th — slightly larger, in fact, than Venus and Mars on that date. During a November transit the situation is reversed: Mercury is near perihelion (closest to the Sun), and its diameter never exceeds 10.0".
Mercury's next transit of the solar disk favors observers in Pacific Rim countries. This event takes place in 2006 on the afternoon of November 8th in the Americas, and the morning of November 9th west of the International Date Line.
Yet for many observers this May's transit is a warm-up session for a far grander spectacle, one that no person alive today has ever seen. The planet will cross the disk of the Sun on June 8, 2004, for nearly the same regions of the Earth, and at the same time of day, as does Mercury on May 7, 2003. Compared to puny Mercury, Venus's silhouette will appear five times wider and 23 times bigger in area — producing a fairly obvious naked-eye "sunspot"!
All transits of Mercury fall either in tropical Taurus, or Scorpio, within several days of 8 May and 10 November. The May transit is rarer. The dates of the phenomena (1970-2050) are listed below with the Date Time (UT) and Separation in arc-seconds between the centers of the Sun and Mercury.
1970 May 09 08:16 114". 1973 Nov. 10 10:32 26". 1986 Nov. 13 04:07 471". 1993 Nov. 06 03:57 927". 1999 Nov. 15 21:41 963" (graze). 2003 May 07 07:52 708". 2006 Nov. 08 21:41 423". 2016 May 09 14:57 319". 2019 Nov. 11 15:20 76". 2032 Nov. 13 08:54 572". 2039 Nov. 07 08:46 822". 2049 May 07 14:24 512".
We are looking forward to this first 'May transit' since 1970. We view these as 'Mercury Eclipses', indicating the commencement of Mercury/Sun cycles. The astrological charts for the transit of Mercury on May 7th 2003 ( 05-13 to 10-32 GMT) will be featured in the Daze shortly. The moment of Mercury's Inferior conjunction on the 7th May is 07-21 GMT, we will take this moment as the most significant for astrological analysis...More to follow.
(All text from http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/TSE2002/TSE2002.html)
May 16th 2003. Total Lunar Eclipse at 25 degrees Scorpio.
The first eclipse of the year is a total lunar eclipse which is well placed for Western Hemisphere observers. The eclipse occurs just half a day after perigee so the Moon will appear quite large (33.4 arc-minutes). During this event, the Moon is low on the ecliptic in (Sidereal) Libra approximately fifteen degrees west of the first magnitude star Alpha Scorpii (Antares). The Moon's path takes it through the northern part of Earth's umbral shadow. Although the eclipse is not central, the total phase still lasts 1 hour 37 minutes. The eclipse begins at 01:05 UT with first penumbral contact. An hour later, the partial eclipse commences with first umbral contact at 02:03 UT. The total umbral eclipse begins at 03:14 UT and ends at 04:07 UT. The partial phase ends at 05:17 UT and the Moon leaves the penumbral shadow at 06:15 UT. The Moon's path through Earth's shadows as well as a map illustrating worldwide visibility of the event is shown in . At the instant of greatest eclipse (03:40 UT), the Moon will lie in the zenith for observers in southern Brazil near its western border with Bolivia and Paraguay
May 31st 2003. Annular Solar Eclipse at 9 degrees Gemini.
The first solar eclipse of 2003 is a very unusual annular eclipse which takes place in the Northern Hemisphere (. The axis of the Moon's shadow passes to the far north where it barely grazes Earth's surface. In fact, the northern edge of the antumbra actually misses our planet so that one path limit is defined by the day/night terminator rather by the shadow's upper edge. As a result, the track of annularity has a peculiar "D" shape which is nearly 1200 kilometres wide. Since the eclipse occurs just three weeks prior to the northern summer solstice, Earth's northern axis is pointed sunwards by 22.8°. As seen from the Sun, the antumbral shadow actually passes between the North Pole and the terminator. As a consequence of this extraordinary geometry, the path of annularity runs from east to west instead of visa versa. As a member of 3, this is the first central eclipse of the series. The event transpires near the Moon's ascending node in central (Sideral) Taurus five degrees north of Aldebaran. Since apogee occurs three days earlier (May 28 at 13 UT), the Moon's apparent diameter (29.6 arc-minutes) is still too small to completely cover the Sun (31.6 arc-minutes) resulting in an annular eclipse. The Moon's antumbral shadow first touches down on Earth at 03:45 UT in northern Scotland about 100 kilometres north of Glasgow (). The antumbra quickly extends northward as it travels on a northwestern trajectory. In Scotland, the Northwest Highlands, Loch Ness, the Isle of Lewis (Outer Hebrides), Orkney Islands and Shetland Islands all lie in the annular track where maximum eclipse occurs at or shortly after sunrise. Several minutes later, the shadow's edge reaches the Faeroe Islands (03:51 UT) where annularity lasts 03 minutes 08 seconds with the Sun 4° above the northeastern horizon. By 03:59 UT, the leading edge of the antumbra arrives along the southeastern coast of Iceland. Traveling with a ground velocity over 0.5 kilometres per second, the shadow sweeps across the entire North Atlantic nation in eight minutes. The shadow is so broad, that the duration of the three and a half minute annular phase varies by less than 5 seconds across all of Iceland. After traversing the Denmark Strait, the highly elliptical antumbra bisects Greenland where over a third of the enormous island lies within the track. Crossing the ill-named land mass, the path width rapidly shrinks as the grazing antumbra begins its return to space. Just before reaching Baffin Island, the shadow leaves Earth in the Davis Strait (04:31 UT). From start to finish, the antumbra sweeps over its entire path in a little under 47 minutes. The central line of the eclipse forms a short C-shaped curve which begins south of Iceland and crosses the country near Reykjavik. Greatest eclipse4 occurs at 04:08:18 UT about 200 kilometres northwest of the Scandinavian island nation. At that point, the duration of the annular phase lasts 3 minutes 37 seconds with the Sun 2.9° above the northeastern horizon. The central line ends near Greenland after running its complete course in twelve minutes Partial phases of the eclipse are visible from much of Europe (except Spain and Portugal) and the Middle East where the event occurs at sunrise, as well as from central and northern Asia (excluding most of China, South East Asia and Japan). In the Western Hemisphere, the partial eclipse is visible from northern Canada and Alaska during the afternoon of May 30.
November 9th 2003. Total lunar Eclipse at 16 degrees Taurus.
The second lunar eclipse of the year occurs six lunations after the first. It takes place at the ascending node of Luna's orbit in Sideral Aries. This time, the Moon is 1.4 days shy of apogee and appears 12% smaller (= 29.4 arc-minutes) than it was during May's eclipse. The Moon's trajectory takes it well to the south of the umbral shadow's central axis resulting in a total eclipse which lasts just 25 minutes. At mid-totality, the Moon's southern limb is a scant 0.6 arc-minutes from the umbra's edge. Even the northern limb is 23.4 arc-minutes from the centre of the shadow. Assuming that the transparency of Earth's atmosphere remains relatively unchanged, the November eclipse will be dramatically brighter than the May event because of the shallow umbral depth. Since different parts of the Moon will probe radically different portions of Earth's umbral shadow, a large variation in shadow brightness can be expected. The totally eclipsed Moon will appear to have a bright rim along its southern edge.
November 23rd 2003. Total Solar Eclipse at 1 degree Sagittarius.
The final event of 2003 is a total solar eclipse visible from the Southern Hemisphere . The path of the Moon's umbral shadow begins at 22:19 UT in the southern Indian Ocean about 1100 kilometres southeast of Kerguelen Island (). Curving south, the 500 kilometre wide umbral path reaches the coast of Antarctica at 22:35 UT. The Shackleton Ice Shelf and Russia's Mirnyy research station lie in the path where the central line duration is 1 minute 55 seconds and the Sun stands 13° above the frozen landscape. Quickly moving inland, the elongated shadow sweeps over the desolate interior of the continent encountering no permanently staffed research stations for the next half hour. Greatest eclipse occurs in Wilkes Land at 22:49:17 UT. At this point, the duration of totality reaches its maximum of 1 minute 55 seconds at solar altitude of 15°. The duration and altitude slowly drop as the umbra's path curves from southwest to northwest. Just like May's annular eclipse, the November event features a lunar shadow moving in the "wrong" direction. Once again, the explanation lies in the deep southern track of the umbra coupled with the close proximity of the eclipse with winter solstice. As viewed from the Sun's direction, the shadow passes around the "back" side of the pole between Earth's axis of rotation and the terminator.