Solar Eclipse Prime Page
Total Solar Eclipse of -1496 May 31 (1497 May 31 BCE)
Fred Espenak
Introduction
The Total Solar Eclipse of -1496 May 31 (1497 May 31 BCE) is visible from the geographic regions shown on the map to the right. Click on the map to enlarge it. For an explanation of the features appearing in the map, see Key to Solar Eclipse Maps.
The instant of greatest eclipse takes place on -1496 May 31 at 15:00:06 TD (05:17:17 UT1). This is 0.7 days after the Moon reaches perigee. During the eclipse, the Sun is in the constellation Gemini. The synodic month in which the eclipse takes place has a Brown Lunation Number of -42282.
The eclipse belongs to Saros 23 and is number 37 of 72 eclipses in the series. All eclipses in this series occur at the Moons ascending node. The Moon moves southward with respect to the node with each succeeding eclipse in the series and gamma decreases.
The solar eclipse of -1496 May 31 is an exceptionally long total eclipse with a duration at greatest eclipse of 06m44s. It has an eclipse magnitude of 1.0785.
The total solar eclipse of -1496 May 31 is preceded two weeks earlier by a penumbral lunar eclipse on -1496 May 17, and it is followed two weeks later by a penumbral lunar eclipse on -1496 Jun 15.
These eclipses all take place during a single eclipse season.
The eclipse predictions are given in both Terrestrial Dynamical Time (TD) and Universal Time (UT1). The parameter ΔT is used to convert between these two times (i.e., UT1 = TD - ΔT). ΔT has a value of 34969.2 seconds for this eclipse. The uncertainty in ΔT is 1886.4 seconds corresponding to a standard error in longitude of the eclipse path of ± 7.88°.
The following links provide maps and data for the eclipse.
- Orthographic Map: Total Solar Eclipse of -1496 May 31 - global map of eclipse visibility
- Google Map: Total Solar Eclipse of -1496 May 31 - interactive map of the eclipse path
- Path Table: Total Solar Eclipse of -1496 May 31 - coordinates of the central line and path limits
- Circumstances Table: Total Solar Eclipse of -1496 May 31 - eclipse times for hundreds of cities
- Saros 23 Table - data for all eclipses in the Saros series
The tables below contain detailed predictions and additional information on the Total Solar Eclipse of -1496 May 31 .