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The Partial Solar Eclipse of February 15th, 2018

CAUTION! OBSERVING A SUN ECLIPSE IS DANGEROUS AND MAY CAUSE IRREVERSIBLE EYE DAMAGE, UP TO BLINDNESS, ANNULAR AND PARTIAL ECLIPSES INCLUDED! Observing a Sun eclipse necessitates DEDICATED SAFE TECHNIQUES!

That first solar eclipse in 2018 -- and that year's second major astronomical event -- is a partial solar eclipse, the partial solar eclipse of February 15th, 2018. A partial solar eclipse occurs when neither the 'umbra' nor the 'antumbra' of the eclipse touches Earth in any place as the 'penumbra' does, only. Anywhere in the area of a partial solar eclipse, observers are treated with a Sun indented by the dark disk of the Moon. for more about solar eclipses, theoretically, see our tutorial "Sun Eclipses"

That partial eclipse will be moving from eastern, to western Antarctive, starting South of Australia and ending in southern south America. The greatest, by 20:51:24.5 UT, has the pecularity of occurring on the day/night terminator, close to the shores of northern Antarctica, with about a Sun's indentation of 60 percent, which is important. It will be the midnight Sun over Antarctica. The more away, in direction of the Pacific ocean, from the terminator, the less the Sun will be indented and the only lands outside Antarctica concerned with the partial eclipse will be in Chili and Argentina

A illustration of how a partial eclipse looks like either side of a total or annular, or per se; numbers match the one found on a eclipse's chart

Eclipse's main data are the following (data as of November 2017, EclipseWise.com). The Moon's apparent diameter will be of 29' 58.8", compared to the Sun's 32' 22.8". Greatest eclipse occurs in northern Antarctica at 20:51:24.5 UT. for more about how to observe a solar eclipse, see our tutorial 'Observing a Sun Eclipse':
- greatest eclipse: 20:51:24.5 UT
- eclipse magnitude (fraction of the Sun's diameter obscured by the Moon at greatest eclipse): 0.59911
- P1 to P4 (moments of first-last external-internal tangency of the penumbra with Earth's limb; practically these are the moments of the eclipse for the places where the eclipse is partial; no P2 nor P3 are given), in UT: P1 at 18:55:50.7, P4 at 22:47:10.5

see a map for the partial solar eclipse of February 15th, 2018. map courtesy EclipseWise.com

. for more about this eclipse and for more about solar and lunar eclipses generally, you may see at the Internet, with Fred Espenak a reference in the domain