Solar eclipse of May 31, 2003

On May 31, 2003, an annular solar eclipse that was seen in Iceland, Greenland and the northern Atlantic Ocean occurred. The zone of partial visibility extended across Asia, Europe and North America

The geometry of the eclipse was very unusual. The northern hemisphere was facing the sun. The axis of the umbra cone ran just past the North Pole, so that a limit of the shadow path was determined by the day - night boundary. In addition, the region of the annular eclipse from east to west over the surface of the earth moving, rather than vice versa, as is usually the case.

Course

The ringförminge phases of the eclipse began at 6:02 clock CEST 130 km south of the Icelandic coast and hit a minute later on land. At 6:07 clock darkness Iceland left again and reached at 6:08 clock 81.24 km west of the Icelandic coast peaked. After six minutes train across the sea the eclipse at 6:14 clock was stopped. She was minutes to see long at the beginning and at the end of 3.32,7, the climax took 3:34,1 min.

Visibility in Northwest Europe

In Europe, the eclipse was annular only in Iceland, in its partial phase she was in the UK to see the Benelux countries, France and Germany.

Here the sun went teilverfinstert on a small sickle. The Sichel widened rapidly, and about an hour after sunrise gave the moon the sun's disk again completely free. The resulting image on the left in southern Germany shows the solar crescent at 5:21 CEST clock, a few minutes after emergence.

The eclipse was visible to Alsace very clearly in Belfort. Particularly strong coverage of the sun was reflected by the moon in North West Scotland.