OFFSET
-1999,102
COMMENTS
The moment of the 'greatest eclipse,' defined as when the axis of the moon's shadow cone is closest to Earth's center, is used for determining this sequence.
Important Note: The dates and times in the data described below are in Terrestrial Dynamical Time (TD). Adjustment is required for Universal Time.
Hybrid eclipses, which are total on some parts of their paths and annular on other parts, are NOT counted here.
The 5000 sequence values in the b-file were derived from the NASA catalog (describing 11898 solar eclipses of all types, historical or predicted, during this time period, 2000 BCE to 3000 CE).
There are 3173 total solar eclipses and 569 hybrid solar eclipses during this 5000-year period.
All 5000 terms in the b-file are known (within reason). Although, for example, eclipse #528 in the Espenak & Meeus link is listed as happening at 23:51:46 on Dec 31 -1787, well within the computed uncertainty of 48 minutes for that date, no such instances occur with total eclipses. Indeed, all are within several standard errors. - Charles R Greathouse IV, Aug 10 2020
REFERENCES
P. J. Huber, Modeling the length of day and extrapolating the rotation of the Earth, Astronomical Amusements, Edited by F. Bonoli, S. De Meis, & A. Panaino, Rome, (2000). Cited in Espenak & Meeus.
LINKS
Rick L. Shepherd, Table of n, a(n) for n = -1999..3000
Fred Espenak and Jean Meeus, NASA Five Millennium Catalog of Solar Eclipses: -1999 to +3000
P. J. Huber, Modeling the length of day and extrapolating the rotation of the Earth, Journal of Geodesy volume 80 (2006), pp. 283-303.
NASA, Uncertainty in Delta-T (ΔT) (2007)
CROSSREFS
KEYWORD
nonn
AUTHOR
Rick L. Shepherd, Aug 20 2017
STATUS
approved