Solar eclipse of August 11, 1999
20th century total solar eclipse
A total solar eclipse occurred at the Moon's ascending node of orbit on Wednesday, August 11, 1999, with a magnitude of 1.0286. This was one of the most-viewed total solar eclipses in human history. A solar eclipse is when the Moon passes between the Earth and the Sun, thereby totally or partly obscuring the light of the sun for a viewer on earth. A total solar eclipse is when the Moon's apparent diameter is larger than the Sun's, blocking all direct sunlight, turning day into night. Totality occurs in a narrow path across Earth's surface, with the partial solar eclipse visible over a surrounding region thousands of kilometres wide. Occurring about 3.5 days after perigee (on August 8, 1999, at 0:30 UTC), the Moon's apparent diameter was larger.
It was the first total eclipse visible from Europe since July 22, 1990, and the first visible in the United Kingdom since June 29, 1927.
The path of the Moon's shadow began in the Atlantic Ocean roughly 300 km (190 mi) south of Nova Scotia, and was later traversing the southwest United Kingdom (Cornwall and Devon), part of the British crown dependency Guernsey, northern France, the southern edge of Belgium, Luxembourg, southern Germany, Austria, the extreme northeastern tip of Slovenia, Hungary, and northern Yugoslavia (Vojvodina). The eclipse's maximum was at 11:03 UTC at 45.1°N 24.3°E / 45.1; 24.3 in Romania near the town of Râmnicu Vâlcea. From there, it continued across Romania, including its capital Bucharest, then traversing northeast Bulgaria, the Black Sea, Turkey, the northeastern tip of Syria, northern Iraq, Iran, southern Pakistan, south-central India, and ended in the Bay of Bengal.
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This entry incorporates text from “Solar eclipse of August 11, 1999” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.