Rare hybrid solar eclipse on Thursday, April 20, 2023

A rare hybrid solar eclipse will take place on Thursday, April 20, 2023. The eclipse path starts out as annular, changes to total, and then changes back to annular before the path ends. Hybrid eclipses occur only a few times a century.

The hybrid eclipse will be visible from Australia, Timor-Leste, and parts of Indonesia. A partial solar eclipse will be visible from southeast Asia, East Indies, Australia, the Philippines, and New Zealand.

The partial eclipse will begin at 01:34 UTC and end at 06:59 UTC. The central (hybrid) eclipse will begin at 02:37 UTC and end at 05:56 UTC.

The instant of the greatest eclipse will take place off the coast of Timor at 04:16 UTC. This is 4.1 days after the Moon reaches the perigee. During the eclipse, the Sun is in the constellation Aries. The synodic month in which the eclipse takes place has a Brown Lunation Number of 1241.

The duration of the hybrid eclipse is 199 minutes and there will be 1 minute and 16 seconds of totality.

The eclipse belongs to Saros 129 and is number 52 of 80 eclipses in the series. All eclipses in this series occur at the Moon’s ascending node. The Moon moves southward with respect to the node with each succeeding eclipse in the series and gamma decreases.

This solar eclipse is followed two weeks later by a penumbral lunar eclipse on May 5, 2023.

Update, April 20

The Himawari-9 satellite captured stunning footage of the celestial event, providing a unique perspective for audiences worldwide.

References:

¹ Hybrid Solar Eclipse of 2023 Apr 20 – Fred Espenak – Accessed April 19, 2023

Featured image credit: The Watchers