Five Millennium Catalog of Solar Eclipses

-1999 to +3000 (2000 BCE to 3000 CE)

Introduction

Eclipses of the Sun can only occur when the Moon is near one of its two orbital nodes [1] during the New Moon phase (see Periodicity of Solar Eclipses ). It is then possible for the Moon's penumbral, umbral or antumbral shadows to sweep across Earth's surface thereby producing an eclipse. There are four types of solar eclipses:

1. Partial - Moon's penumbral shadow traverses Earth (umbral and antumbral shadows completely miss Earth)
2. Annular - Moon's antumbral shadow traverses Earth (Moon is too far from Earth to completely cover the Sun)
3. Total - Moon's umbral shadow traverses Earth (Moon is close enough to Earth to completely cover the Sun)
4. Hybrid - Moon's umbral and antumbral shadows traverse Earth (eclipse appears annular and total along different sections of its path). Hybrid eclipses are also known as annular-total eclipses. [2]

Total eclipses are visible from within the Moon’s umbral shadow while annular eclipses are seen within the antumbral shadow . These eclipses can be classified as central [3] or non-central as:

1. Central (two limits) - The central axis of the Moon’s shadow cone traverses Earth thereby producing a central line in the eclipse track. The umbra or antumbra falls entirely upon Earth so the ground track has both a northern and southern limit.
2. Central (one limit) - The central axis of the Moon’s shadow cone traverses Earth. However, a portion of the umbra or antumbra misses Earth throughout the eclipse and the resulting ground track has just one limit.
3. Non-Central (one limit) - The central axis of the Moon’s shadow cone misses Earth. However, one edge of the umbra or antumbra grazes Earth thereby producing a ground track with one limit and no central line.

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Solar Eclipses: -1999 to +3000 (2000 BCE to 3000 CE)

During the five Millennium period -1999 to +3000 (2000 BCE to 3000 CE[4]), Earth will experience 11898 solar eclipses. The following table shows the number of eclipses of each type over this period.

Solar Eclipses: -1999 to +3000
Eclipse Type	Symbol	Number	Percent
All Eclipses	-	11898	100.0%
Partial	P	4200	35.3%
Annular	A	3956	33.2%
Total	T	3173	26.7%
Hybrid	H	569	4.8%

Annular and total eclipses can be further classified as either: 1) Central (two limits), 2) Central (one limit) or 3) Non-Central (one limit). The statistical distribution of these classes over five millennia appears in the following three tables (no Hybrids are included since all are central with two limits).

Annular and Total Eclipses (Combined)
Classification	Number	Percent
All	7129	100.0%
Central (two limits)	6948	97.5%
Central (one limit)	87	1.2%
Non-Central (one limit)	94	1.3%

Annular Eclipses
Classification	Number	Percent
All Annular Eclipses	3956	100.0%
Central (two limits)	3827	96.7%
Central (one limit)	61	1.5%
Non-Central (one limit)	68	1.7%

Total Eclipses
Classification	Number	Percent
All Total Eclipses	3173	100.0%
Central (two limits)	3121	98.4%
Central (one limit)	26	0.8%
Non-Central (one limit)	26	0.8%

There are a minimum of two and a maximum of five solar eclipses in every calendar year. Statistics for the number of eclipses each year over the 5000 year period are listed below.

Number of Eclipses Per Year
Number of Eclipses	Number of Years	Percent
2	3625	72.5%
3	877	17.5%
4	473	9.5%
5	25	0.5%

The years containing five eclipses are:

Years With Five Solar Eclipses
-1852	-1805	-1787	-1740	-1675
-1154	-1089	-568	-503	-438
-373	18	83	148	604
669	734	1255	1805	1935
2206	2709	2774	2839	2904

There are 43 years containing two eclipses in the same calendar month:

Two Solar Eclipses in Same Calendar Month
-1957 Mar	-1805 Jan	-1610 Jul	-1534 Jun	-1523 May	-1447 Apr	-1209 Dec	-1122 Oct
-1111 Sep	-1035 Aug	-1024 Jul	-1013 Jun	-688 Dec	-677 Nov	-601 Oct	-590 Sep
-514 Aug	-503 Jul	-416 May	7 Aug	18 Jul	97 Apr	463 Aug	528 Aug
539 Jul	542 May	618 Apr	629 Mar	1063 May	1150 Mar	1215 Mar	1631 May
1696 May	1805 Jan	1880 Dec	2000 Jul	2206 Dec	2261 Jan	2282 Nov	2304 Sep
2380 Aug	2684 Oct	2785 May

The longest and shortest eclipses of the 5,000 year period as well the largest and smallest partial eclipses are listed below.

          Longest Annular Solar Eclipse:    0150 Dec 07      Duration = 12m23s
         Shortest Annular Solar Eclipse:    2931 Dec 30      Duration = 00m00s

          Longest  Total  Solar Eclipse:    2186 Jul 16      Duration = 07m29s
         Shortest  Total  Solar Eclipse:    0919 Feb 03      Duration = 00m09s

           Longest Hybrid Solar Eclipse:   -0979 Aug 13      Duration = 01m48s
          Shortest Hybrid Solar Eclipse:    1986 Oct 03      Duration = 00m00s

          Largest Partial Solar Eclipse:   -1577 Mar 30     Magnitude = 0.99984
         Smallest Partial Solar Eclipse:   -1838 Apr 04     Magnitude = 0.00002

The table below summarizes all eclipses over this five millennium period by century. Each line in the table gives a breakdown per century for each type of eclipse (partial, annular, total and hybrid). The date intervals themselves are each links to a catalog page listing full details for every solar eclipse in the corresponding century. The data in these 100 year eclipse tables include the date and time of greatest eclipse[5], the eclipse type, Saros series, gamma, magnitude and local circumstances. For a detailed key and additional information about the catalogs, see: Key to Catalog of Solar Eclipses. Each of the 100 year tables is about 40 kilobytes in size. The data presented here are based on the Five Millennium Canon of Solar Eclipses: -1999 to +3000.

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Five Millennium Catalog of Solar Eclipses
Century Interval	Number of Eclipses	Number of Partial Eclipses	Number of Annular Eclipses[6]	Number of Total Eclipses[6]	Number of Hybrid Eclipses
-1999 to -1900	239	84	70 [1]	62 [0]	22
-1899 to -1800	253	93	80 [0]	62 [1]	17
-1799 to -1700	254	95	73 [1]	63 [1]	21
-1699 to -1600	230	75	70 [1]	60 [0]	24
-1599 to -1500	225	78	65 [2]	59 [0]	21
-1499 to -1400	226	77	65 [4]	61 [1]	18
-1399 to -1300	234	76	83 [1]	68 [0]	6
-1299 to -1200	250	93	86 [0]	64 [0]	7
-1199 to -1100	252	93	89 [0]	63 [0]	7
-1099 to -1000	238	79	89 [2]	67 [1]	0
-0999 to -0900	226	84	74 [1]	58 [3]	6
-0899 to -0800	225	80	73 [2]	64 [2]	4
-0799 to -0700	234	79	88 [0]	64 [0]	3
-0699 to -0600	253	96	86 [1]	63 [0]	7
-0599 to -0500	255	96	85 [1]	65 [0]	8
-0499 to -0400	241	84	76 [2]	62 [0]	17
-0399 to -0300	225	83	62 [1]	56 [0]	23
-0299 to -0200	226	83	61 [1]	55 [2]	24
-0199 to -0100	237	80	71 [2]	62 [1]	21
-0099 to 0000	251	92	77 [0]	64 [1]	17
0001 to 0100	248	90	74 [1]	58 [0]	25
0101 to 0200	237	80	75 [2]	63 [1]	16
0201 to 0300	227	79	70 [4]	69 [0]	5
0301 to 0400	222	73	74 [2]	65 [1]	7
0401 to 0500	233	80	83 [1]	67 [0]	2
0501 to 0600	251	93	86 [1]	65 [0]	6
0601 to 0700	251	90	89 [1]	67 [0]	4
0701 to 0800	233	77	86 [2]	66 [0]	2
0801 to 0900	222	78	72 [2]	62 [2]	6
0901 to 1000	227	76	83 [1]	65 [1]	1
1001 to 1100	241	84	90 [0]	61 [0]	6
1101 to 1200	250	92	82 [0]	61 [0]	15
1201 to 1300	246	87	80 [1]	60 [0]	18
1301 to 1400	229	76	72 [3]	54 [0]	24
1401 to 1500	222	77	62 [3]	60 [1]	19
1501 to 1600	228	75	69 [3]	62 [0]	19
1601 to 1700	248	89	74 [0]	60 [1]	24
1701 to 1800	251	92	78 [0]	62 [0]	19
1801 to 1900	242	87	77 [0]	63 [0]	15
1901 to 2000	228	78	71 [2]	68 [3]	6
2001 to 2100	224	77	70 [2]	67 [1]	7
2101 to 2200	235	79	82 [5]	65 [0]	4
2201 to 2300	248	92	86 [0]	67 [0]	3
2301 to 2400	248	88	86 [0]	66 [0]	8
2401 to 2500	237	81	87 [2]	65 [1]	1
2501 to 2600	225	83	71 [1]	63 [1]	6
2601 to 2700	227	77	78 [3]	64 [0]	5
2701 to 2800	242	84	92 [0]	63 [0]	3
2801 to 2900	254	95	86 [1]	63 [0]	9
2901 to 3000	248	91	80 [2]	64 [0]	11

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Calendar

The Gregorian calendar is used for all dates from 1582 Oct 15 onwards. Before that date, the Julian calendar is used. For more information on this topic, see Calendar Dates. The Julian calendar does not include the year 0. Thus the year 1 BCE is followed by the year 1 CE (See: BCE/CE Dating Conventions ). This is awkward for arithmetic calculations. Years in this catalog are numbered astronomically and include the year 0. Historians should note there is a difference of one year between astronomical dates and BCE dates. Thus, the astronomical year 0 corresponds to 1 BCE, and astronomical year -1 corresponds to 2 BCE, etc..

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Predictions

The coordinates of the Sun used in these predictions are based on the VSOP87 theory [Bretagnon and Francou, 1988]. The Moon's coordinates are based on the ELP-2000/82 theory [Chapront-Touze and Chapront, 1983]. For more information, see: Solar and Lunar Ephemerides. The revised value used for the Moon's secular acceleration is n-dot = -25.858 arc-sec/cy*cy, as deduced from the Apollo lunar laser ranging experiment (Chapront, Chapront-Touze, and Francou, 2002).

The largest uncertainty in the eclipse predictions is caused by fluctuations in Earth's rotation due primarily to tidal friction of the Moon. The resultant drift in apparent clock time is expressed as ΔT and is determined as follows:

1. pre-1950's: ΔT calculated from empirical fits to historical records derived by Morrison and Stephenson (2004)
2. 1955-present: ΔT obtained from published observations
3. future: ΔT is extrapolated from current values weighted by the long term trend from tidal effects

A series of polynomial expressions have been derived to simplify the evaluation of ΔT for any time from -1999 to +3000. The uncertainty in ΔT over this period can be estimated from scatter in the measurements.

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Footnotes

[1] The orbital nodes are the two points where the Moon's orbit crosses a plane of Earth's orbit (i.e., the ecliptic).

[2] Hybrid eclipses are also known as annular/total eclipses. Such an eclipse is both total and annular along different sections of its umbral path. (See: Five Millennium Catalog of Hybrid Solar Eclipses)

[3] Central solar eclipses are eclipses in which the central axis of the Moon's shadow strikes the Earth's surface. All partial (penumbral) eclipses are non-central eclipses since the shadow axis misses Earth. However, umbral eclipses (total, annular and hybrid) may be either central (usually) or non-central (rarely).

[4] The terms BCE and CE are abbreviations for "Before Common Era" and "Common Era," respectively. They are the secular equivalents to the BC and AD dating conventions. (See: Year Dating Conventions )

[5] Greatest eclipse is defined as the instant when the axis of the Moon's shadow passes closest to the Earth's center. For total eclipses, the instant of greatest eclipse is virtually identical to the instants of greatest magnitude and greatest duration. However, for annular eclipses, the instant of greatest duration may occur at either the time of greatest eclipse or near the sunrise and sunset points of the eclipse path.

[6] The first quantity is the number of central eclipses, while the second quantity [in square brackets] is the number of non-central eclipses.

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Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Jean Meeus for providing the Besselian elements used in the solar eclipse predictions.

All eclipse calculations are by Fred Espenak, and he assumes full responsibility for their accuracy. Some of the information presented on this web site is based on data originally published in Five Millennium Canon of Solar Eclipses: -1999 to +3000.

Permission is freely granted to reproduce this data when accompanied by an acknowledgment:

"Eclipse Predictions by Fred Espenak and Jean Meeus (NASA's GSFC)"