Britain's Annular Solar Eclipse

31 May 2003

Saros 147 (-18)
Gamma 0.996
ΔT = 64.6s

by Sheridan Williams

 

As in the soft and sweet eclipse
When soul meets soul on lover's lips
Prometheus Unbound - Shelley


For further information on all aspects of solar eclipses, my book UK Solar Eclipses from year 1 to 3000AD tells you everything you could ever want to know. Click HERE for full details. Orders despatched by return of post.

 

 

 

 

An annular eclipse is one where the Moon is too small to cover the Sun completely, and leaves a proportion of the Sun showing. Annular eclipses can pass unnoticed because the remaining part of the Sun is so bright the environment is not noticeably dimmed.

Here is a compilation of images and web sites from various locations.
 
         
Location Long (W) Lat (N) Observer

Best View

Coldbackie, near Tongue 4° 23'W 58° 30' Norman NcNab
Butt of Lewis     Ross Bennie & Morven McLean
Dornoch, Scotland 4° 01'W 57° 53' Peter Hancock Dornoch-Peter Hancock
Near Melvaig, Rossshire     Fran Cree & Chris Barrett

Dornoch, Scotland

   

Lee Montgomerie

http://www.roast.iconbar.com/graphics/galleries/eclipse2003/
Vienna, Austria     Heinz Scsibrany

http://www.lcm.tuwien.ac.at/scs/sofi03e.htm

Durness 4° 45'W 58° 34' Jörg Schoppmeyer Jörg Schoppmeyer from Durness
www.astronomie.de/sonnensystem/sofi/d-2003/index.htm
Sango Bay 4° 44'W 58° 34'
Julien & Patrick Onderbeke
Therese & Lieve Ongena
Annie Schoenmaeckers & Ronald Vandenberge
Hilde Vandenbossche & Walter Dierickx

 

10km above sea level, in flight NW34 from Seattle to Amsterdam. Location somewhere between Faroe and Shetland Islands, in the area when the eclipse was annular at 03:49 UT.     Olivier Staiger Olivier Staiger from the air
Mundesley, Norfolk 1° 26'E 52° 53' Filipe and Lucia Filipe and Lucia
Tarbat Ness Portmahomack Easter Ross     John Robertson
Portmahomack Easter Ross     Michael Kunz http://www.michaelkunze.de/
Leicester, England     Geoff Harrison
Bettyhill, Scotland     Pam and David Sykes
Ben Hope, Scotland     Colin Cadden
http://www.pentlandhills.com/
Suter Hill, Cromarty     Paul Harris
Mountain "Saile", 2404m a.s.l, above Innsbruck 11° 19'E 47° 12' Andreas Fink
http://geo4.uibk.ac.at/users/fink/homepage/alp_b4.html
Olafsfjördur, Iceland     Timo Karhula
http://www.imira.com/Album/GuestView.asp?AID=827945
Eyjafjordur fjord about 15 km north of the town of Akureyi, Iceland     Fred Espenak http://www.mreclipse.com/SEreports/ASE2003/A03Espenak.html
Skagafjordur fiord), Iceland 20° 08'W 66° 08' Raymond Brooks Success, but no picture yet
John o' Groats 3° 04'W 58° 39' Fred Bruenjes Clouded out but here's the story: http://www.moonglow.net/eclipse/2003may31/index.html
Shetland 1° 09' 60° 09' Stephen McCann Clouded out
Mey, Caithness 3° 13'W 58° 39' Sheridan Williams Clouded out
Isafjordur, Iceland    

Christophe Marlot

Success, but no picture yet
Sinclair Bay, north of Wick     Val and Andrew White http://www.vanda.demon.co.uk/travel/scotland/Eclipse_Report.htm
Iceland from the air     Jay Pasachoff http://www.williams.edu/astronomy/eclipse/eclipse03/2003_iceland/2003iceland_page1.htm
Hohen Preissenberg, Bavaria     AFP http://www.smh.com.au/photography/regular/snapshots/image/2003/06/01/image.html?picindex=0
Athens       http://edition.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/05/31/eclipse.reut/index.html
Germany 11° 55'E 51° 38' Marc Weihrauch

http://astroverein-halle.de/ergebnisse/ase2003.html

Delfzijl, Netherlands     Reinder Bouma http://www.shopplaza.nl/astro/
Nesoddtangen, Norway     Arne Danielsen http://home.online.no/~arnedani/astronomy/astrophoto/eclipse/eclipse.htm
Eyjafjord, Iceland     Richard Monk http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rimonk/index.htm
Iceland     Snaevarr Gudmundsson http://www.almanak.hi.is/myrkmynd.html
Ackergill, Scotland     "Ecliptomaniacs" http://www.ecliptomaniacs.com/
Vilvoorde, Belgium     Willy Menekens

http://users.telenet.be/nmenneke/eclips/engels/eclips03a_en.html

      Saros Eclipse Exhibitions

http://www.saros.org

         
         

Eclipse T-shirts

Paul Sutherland writes:
I went with Robin Scagell to Melvich where we manage to see it from about 5 minutes after annularity onwards. We were not unhappy.

We were struck by the absence of any sort of souvenir of the occasion which was a shame. In an attempt to rectify things, I have produced some T-shirt images which can be found here www.skymania.com Sorry if this sounds like a commercial, but there may well be people who want a souvenir.

Sheridan's eclipse home page
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Updated 2 August 2003