The next
SOLAR ECLIPSE
visible from The Isle of Man
occurs
on 1st August 2008, details of which can be found here.
This will only be seen as a partial eclipse from the Island.
View an
animation of a solar eclipse here.
Preview the eclipse as it will be seen from the Isle of Man,
(daylight masked out) at x300 normal speed here. (1.2MB Quicktime movie)
A TOTAL Solar Eclipse is not in itself a
particularly unusual event. There were for example 62 such occurrences during
the 20th century. However only three of these (29th June, 1927; 30th June,
1954; 11th August, 1999) had a path of totality that crossed the British Isles,
none of which included the Isle of Man. Indeed, no path of totality crossed any
area of the British Isles for a period of 203 years, between 1724 and 1927.
Given that there were "only three" during the 20th century, there
have been only twelve since 500 AD, so from that perspective, it was a flush
century.
To say the Isle of Man is not exactly blessed with total solar eclipses would
be an understatement of major proportions, for the last path of totality that
crossed over our fair Isle was on 8th April, 1652. And just in
case you were thinking that there must be one bound to appear soon, well, that
won't be until 14th June, 2151! There was a
tantalisingly near miss for the Island on 29th June, 1927, as can be seen from this
illustration showing the path of totality, but this required a trip
out into the Irish Sea to witness. In fact such a trip took place, courtesy of
the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company on their vessel "Mona". Unsurprisingly, this was dogged by cloud
cover. Who would have thought it! One Isle of Man resident, Percy Johnson, was
more fortunate however and saw the whole event clearly from a location near
Southport. He reported his observations with much enthusiasm on page seven of
the Isle of Man Times on the following Saturday, 2nd July, 1927.
Unfortunately a scan of the-printout-of-the-microfilm held at the Manx Museum
in Douglas, proved rather poor, so in its place you will find a close facsimile
to the original text re-typed in the same two-column format, typos and all, in
Adobe Reader format here (83 KB).
Partial solar eclipses are common from our Island but unless you know that the
actual event is happening, then you would never notice. Annular solar eclipses
are even rarer than total eclipses as viewed from the Isle of Man. The last
annular eclipse occurred on 24th December, 1601 and the
next will not be visible until 2nd October, 2350.
It's fair to say, that if you want to experience a total eclipse, then you will
have to journey to one. You may recall that for the vast majority of people
attempting to glimpse the 1999 eclipse that crossed Cornwall, the ubiquitous
maritime covering of cumulus nimbus masked it for all but a lucky few. So
sunnier climes are a much better bet, which means travel and expense. And that
is just what some members of the IoMAS have done in the past, and will continue
to do so in the future.
Just in case you are a die-hard stay-at-home-in-the-Isle-of-Man type, and you
can afford to invest in a cryogenic future, immediately below you'll find a map
with your ideal defrosting dates from the year 2100. Bear in mind the disclaimer
on our Welcome page though, for we accept no liabilities for any inaccuracies!
The year 2200 looks to be a favourite (right bang on top of our Foxdale
Observatory), unless you live at the Point of Ayre Lighthouse that is. Don't
forget to check with the MET Office at Ronaldsway for the forecast first!
And now to more recent times. A number of our members made trips to
destinations in Africa and Turkey to witness the total solar eclipse of 29th
March, 2006. Our Chairman Howard Parkin, Treasurer Gary Corlett, and Membership
Secretary Dave Storey took the Turkish option, the incriminating evidence of
which lies below!
Hmm,
someone's been "Photoshopping" here methinks!
Notice the original photograph keeps creeping through?
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TOTAL and ANNULAR solar
eclipses over the Isle of Man |
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during both the past
1,000 years and the future 1,000 years. |
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Note:
There are many more partial eclipses that can be seen from the Isle of Man,
even though the path of totality may be several hundred miles distant. The
total eclipse of 2006 which passed through Turkey, is a recent case in point,
where a partial eclipse
of circa 20% was visible from the Island. |
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Year |
Isle of Man interest |
Year |
Isle of Man interest |
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TOTAL ~ 24th
January,1023 |
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ANNULAR ~ 23rd July, 2093* |
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TOTAL ~ 14th June, 2151 |
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ANNULAR ~ 28th
January, 1180 |
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ANNULAR ~ 23rd
June, 1191 |
TOTAL ~ 14th April, 2200 |
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ANNULAR ~ 2nd October, 2350 |
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TOTAL ~ 22nd July, 2381 |
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TOTAL ~ 11th April, 2442 |
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ANNULAR ~ 12th
November, 1547 |
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TOTAL ~ 7th
March, 1598 |
TOTAL ~ 5th May, 2600 |
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ANNULAR ~ 24th
December, 1601 |
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TOTAL ~ 8th
April, 1652 |
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ANNULAR ~ 5th April, 2676 |
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ANNULAR ~ 30th May, 2766 |
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TOTAL ~ 28th February, 2864 |
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* Off Point of Ayre, but just inside Manx territorial waters. We have to squeeze in whatever we can! |
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