Solar eclipse of November 3, 2013

The totality was observable from the Atlantic and Central Africa. The partial coverage of the sun could be observed in this darkness beside the Atlantic and throughout the African continent and from northern South America, from southern Europe and the Arabian Peninsula.

Course

The eclipse began before the U.S. East Coast and was from there as a partial eclipse under favorable conditions seen at sunrise, with a maximum of 30 percent of the solar disk were covered.

On the extending across the Atlantic in the east central line of the eclipse was annular at the beginning, but after a few 100 kilometers of the umbra of the Moon reaching the earth and the darkness was so total. At the beginning of the totality of the area of the total eclipse was vanishingly small, the width of the shadow path grew in the migration across the Atlantic to a width of almost 60 kilometers. The maximum eclipse duration of one minute and 40 seconds occurred shortly before reaching the African continent.

The umbra reached the African continent in Gabon, where he had still a width of 45 kilometers. About inaccessible and sparsely populated areas of the mittelgebirgigen hinterland of the shadow path first reached the Congo and then Uganda. There the darkness took on the central line only 22 seconds. In Kenya, the duration of totality continued to decline, and with luck, the darkness could be observed at sunset. At least theoretically stroked path of darkness nor Ethiopia and reached just in the border into Somalia, where the umbra of the earth broke. At this point, the apparent diameter of the sun and moon corresponded almost exactly, the darkness was towards the end so just totally and not annular.

Constellation of the planets and comet C/2012 S1 ( ISON )

In this darkness, the planet Saturn and Mercury were in the immediate vicinity of the sun. Both were barely 4 degrees away from the Sun. It was expected that the comet C/2012 S1 ( ISON ) from the beginning of November is visible.