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The Partial Solar Eclipse of September 13th, 2015

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 second and last solar eclipse in 2015 is a partial solar eclipse occurring on September 13th, 2015. 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". The partial solar eclipse of September 13th, 2015 is occurring from southern Africa (or Madagascar) to the eastern reaches of Antarctica. The southernmost in southern Africa, the more the Sun indented with a maximum of 40 percent only by about Cape Town, South Africa where the show will be seen by sunrise. The Antarctic station concerned by the eclipse are the only other land where the eclipse is seen, or the French Southern and Antarctic Lands. The greatest of the eclipse is interestingly seen in western Antarctica near the Earth's terminator. Of note how the eclipse boundaries are aligned with the Earth's terminator like that had occurred with the March 20th 2015 total solar eclipse as, which is usual in that case for a partial eclipse, the point of greatest eclipse lies on the terminator

Eclipse's main data are the following (data as of November 2014, NASA Eclipse Web Site). The Moon's apparent diameter will be of 29' 26.0", compared to the Sun's 31' 47.2". Greatest eclipse occurs at 06:54:11.4 UT. for more about how to observe a solar eclipse, see our tutorial 'Observing a Sun Eclipse':
- greatest eclipse: 06:54:11.4 UT
- eclipse magnitude (fraction of the Sun's diameter obscured by the Moon at greatest eclipse): 0.7875
- P1 to P4 (moments of first-last external-internal tangency of the penumbra with Earth's limb; practically these are the moments of the partial eclipse for the place of the Greatest Eclipse like indicated on the chart. As far as local circumstances are concerned for a given location concerned by the eclipse, you will have to check miscellaneous sources, like Web sources, etc. Check also at our tutorial 'Observing a Sun Eclipse'; no P2 nor P3 due to the specific configuration of the eclipse), in UT: P1 at 04:41:40.1, P4 at 09:06:25.0

see a .gif map for the partial solar eclipse of September 13th, 2015. map courtesy NASA Eclipse Web Site

. for more about this eclipse and for more about solar and lunar eclipses generally, you may see at NASA Eclipse Web Site