An annular solar eclipse occurred at the Moon's ascending node of orbit between Wednesday, March 7 and Thursday, March 8, 1951, with a magnitude of 0.9896. A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby totally or partly obscuring the image of the Sun for a viewer on Earth. An annular solar eclipse occurs when the Moon's apparent diameter is smaller than the Sun's, blocking most of the Sun's light and causing the Sun to look like an annulus (ring). An annular eclipse appears as a partial eclipse over a region of the Earth thousands of kilometres wide. The Moon's apparent diameter was near the average diameter because it occurred 5.5 days after perigee (on March 2, 1951, at 7:10 UTC) and 7.4 days before apogee (on March 15, 1951, at 6:20 UTC).
Annularity was visible from New Zealand on March 8 (Thursday), and northern Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and San Andrés Island in Colombia on March 7 (Wednesday). A partial eclipse was visible for parts of Oceania, western South America, southern North America, Central America, and the Caribbean.
Broadcast This was the first solar eclipse broadcast live on television. American stations such as WCBS-TV, WNET, and NBC News broadcast it live. The path of annularity did not pass the United States of America, and only a partial solar eclipse was visible from the southeastern half of the country. For example, in New York City, a partial solar eclipse occurred right before the sunset, whose gratitude (ratio of diameter covered by the Moon) was only 17%, meaning only 8% of the total disk area was covered at the peak of the eclipse. The curator of the Hayden Planetarium in New York also asked "don’t get people too excited about it" in an interview with The New York Times, but many TV stations still incorporated the solar eclipse into their regular afternoon schedule and also some new TV technology was inaugurated.
Eclipse details Shown below are two tables displaying details about this particular solar eclipse. The first table outlines times at which the Moon's penumbra or umbra attains the specific parameter, and the second table describes various other parameters pertaining to this eclipse.
+March 7, 1951 Solar Eclipse Times Event Time (UTC) First Penumbral External Contact 1951 March 7 at 18:04:26.8 UTC First Umbral External Contact 1951 March 7 at 19:05:55.2 UTC First Central Line 1951 March 7 at 19:06:44.2 UTC First Umbral Internal Contact 1951 March 7 at 19:07:33.2 UTC First Penumbral Internal Contact 1951 March 7 at 20:12:35.1 UTC Equatorial Conjunction 1951 March 7 at 20:39:08.0 UTC Ecliptic Conjunction 1951 March 7 at 20:51:00.5 UTC Greatest Eclipse 1951 March 7 at 20:53:39.9 UTC Last Penumbral Internal Contact 1951 March 7 at 21:35:03.7 UTC Last Umbral Internal Contact 1951 March 7 at 22:39:53.5 UTC Last Central Line 1951 March 7 at 22:40:45.3 UTC Greatest Duration 1951 March 7 at 22:40:45.3 UTC Last Umbral External Contact 1951 March 7 at 22:41:37.2 UTC Last Penumbral External Contact 1951 March 7 at 23:43:05.1 UTC
+March 7, 1951 Solar Eclipse Parameters Parameter Value Eclipse Magnitude 0.98959 Eclipse Obscuration 0.97930 Gamma −0.24196 Sun Right Ascension 23h10m14.1s Sun Declination -05°20'18.6" Sun Semi-Diameter 16'06.8" Sun Equatorial Horizontal Parallax 08.9" Moon Right Ascension 23h10m40.8s Moon Declination -05°32'31.4" Moon Semi-Diameter 15'42.0" Moon Equatorial Horizontal Parallax 0°57'37.1" ΔT 29.6 s
Eclipse season
This eclipse is part of an eclipse season, a period, roughly every six months, when eclipses occur. Only two (or occasionally three) eclipse seasons occur each year, and each season lasts about 35 days and repeats just short of six months (173 days) later; thus two full eclipse seasons always occur each year. Either two or three eclipses happen each eclipse season. In the sequence below, each eclipse is separated by a fortnight. The first and last eclipse in this sequence is separated by one synodic month.
+ Eclipse season of February–March 1951 February 21Descending node (full moon) March 7Ascending node (new moon) March 23Descending node (full moon) Penumbral lunar eclipseLunar Saros 103 Annular solar eclipseSolar Saros 129 Penumbral lunar eclipseLunar Saros 141
Related eclipses Eclipses in 1951 A penumbral lunar eclipse on February 21. An annular solar eclipse on March 7. A penumbral lunar eclipse on March 23. A penumbral lunar eclipse on August 17. An annular solar eclipse on September 1. A penumbral lunar eclipse on September 15.
Metonic Preceded by: Solar eclipse of May 20, 1947 Followed by: Solar eclipse of December 25, 1954
Tzolkinex Preceded by: Solar eclipse of January 25, 1944 Followed by: Solar eclipse of April 19, 1958
Half-Saros Preceded by: Lunar eclipse of March 3, 1942 Followed by: Lunar eclipse of March 13, 1960
Tritos Preceded by: Solar eclipse of April 7, 1940 Followed by: Solar eclipse of February 5, 1962
Solar Saros 129 Preceded by: Solar eclipse of February 24, 1933 Followed by: Solar eclipse of March 18, 1969
Inex Preceded by: Solar eclipse of March 28, 1922 Followed by: Solar eclipse of February 16, 1980
Triad Preceded by: Solar eclipse of May 6, 1864 Followed by: Solar eclipse of January 5, 2038
Solar eclipses of 1950–1953
Saros 129
Metonic series
Tritos series
Inex series
Notes
References