Annular Eclipse of December 26, 2019
January 07, 2020
Photographer: Atish Aman
Summary Authors: Atish Aman; Jim Foster
This montage shows the annular eclipse that occurred on December 26, 2019, as observed from southern India. It was captured from a cliff near Bekal Beach, not far from the city of Kasaragod, North Kerala, India. I stood atop the cliff in order to get a video of the beach. This eclipse was visible along a narrow swath (73 miles or 117 km wide at the point of greatest eclipse) from Saudi Arabia to the western Pacific Ocean, crossing southern India, Malaysia and Indonesia.
Annular eclipses result when the Moon is a little too far from Earth to completely block out the Sun as it passes in front of it. In this case, the Moon was 6 days from apogee, the furthest point in the Moon’s orbit around Earth. Therefore, a ring (termed an annular ring) of sunlight is visible around the rim of the lunar disk at full eclipse.
Photo Details: For all individual photos I used a solar filter, except for the annularity shot, which was taken without the filter.