On Saturday October 14, the shadow of the Moon will race across America, from Oregon to Texas – an annular (ring-shaped) eclipse, which is really a special case of merely partial eclipse.
Here is part of the globe picture of the eclipse, on page 101 of Astronomical Calendar 2023.
The ellipses are the “footprints” of the annular eclipse at 10-minute intervals. Translate the Universal Times into your clock time (still on false “daylight-saving time” till Nov. 5) by subtracting 5 hours for the Central US time zone, 6 for Mountain, 7 for Pacific.
LOOK TOWARD THE SUN ONLY WITH SAFE METHODS. Projection through a pinhole; or No. 14 welder’s glass. NOT through telescope and filter, unless you know exactly what you are doing.
As one of our commenters said, “The eclipse will be annular in Oregon, the far northeastern corner of California, and across Nevada.” It will also cross parts of Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, and will go on to Yucatán, Central America, Colombia, and Brazil.
If you are outside the track, you see a partial eclipse, the sky darkening only slightly, a bite out of the southern edge of the Sun if you are north of the track, vice versa if you are south of the track, the bite larger if you are nearer to the track.
If you are within the track, you look up and see the Sun not blotted out by the Moon, as in a total eclipse, but almost: a narrow ring of Sun shows around the Moon. Any speck of the Sun’s surface (photosphere) is enough to brighten the sky, so the Moon appears not black but as part of the blue sky, through which stars and planets do not show, except just possibly Venus 45° west (“right”) of the Sun, as shown in our Zodiac Wavy Chert for 2023. Mars and Mercury, dimmer and closer to the Sun, are unlikely to be seen.
Saros
In the famous saros cycle of similar eclipses, at intervals of 18 years plus 10 days and a third of a day (fully described in our Under-Standing of Eclipses), this is the 44th in solar series 134.
Its predecessor was the annular eclipse across Portugal, Spain, and Africa on 2005 Oct. 3 – a third of the way around the globe because of that third-of-a day extension of the saros length.
And its successor will be another annular eclipse, across northeast Asia, Japan, and the Pacific on 2041 Oct. 25.
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S
I live in St. Petersburg, Florida, farther down the west coast of the state from Jacksonville, and the eclipse here was spectacular. Nearly 60% of the sun was covered, and many people reported a noticeable slight darkening. Also, in an El Niño year like this one, there is no guarantee o having clear skies here in Florida in October. In fact, predictions even three days before the eclipse we’re calling for cloudy skies. But Saturday was very sunny and lovely throughout the morning and into the afternoon, we’ll after the eclipse ended at 3:02 PM.
Unfortunately, for a large portion of the eastern U.S., Saturday is going to be rainy. A check of various cities on a popular weather site revealed that if I wanted to go somewhere southwest of central Virginia to see this eclipse, I would have to go to Pensacola, Florida to “guarantee” myself clear skies. Since the eclipse magnitude would still only be close to 60% there, it’s probably not worth it