The next
SOLAR ECLIPSE
visible from The Isle of Man

The next solar eclipse will be on 26^th February 2017. This will be an annular solar eclipse but will not be visible from the Isle of Man.

Click here for details.

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The next solar eclipse visible from the Isle of Man will be a partial solar eclipse on 21^st August 2017. Click here for details. This will be seen as a total solar eclipse that will cross North America. As seen from the Isle of Man Observatory, the Moon will make first contact with the Sun at 18h38m42s. The Sun will be at a low altitude of only 7.1°. Maximum partial eclipse will occur at 19h01m30s when the Moon will cover only 8.6% of the southern edge of the Sun. The Sun at this time will be only 3.8° above the horizon. The Moon will leave the Sun's disc at 19h23m38s with the Sun 0.7° degrees above the horizon!

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The last solar eclipse visible from the Isle of Man occurred on 20th March 2015. This was seen as a Partial Solar Eclipse from the UK. From the Isle of Man, the moon started to cross the Sun's disc at 08h26m24s with the Sun at an altitude of 17°. Maximum eclipse of 92.8% occurred at 09h32m05s. Altitude of the Sun being 25°. The moon left the solar disc at 10h39m31s with the Sun at 31° altitude. Weather condition were generally poor across much of the UK and the Isle of Man did suffer from clouded skies. However, some members of the Society did manage to see the eclipse through gaps in the cloud.

James Martin observed from his home in Peel and was able to image the eclipse through cloud. Graham Gordon decided to do a tour of the Island to find clear gaps in the cloud. He did manage to snap some images through thin cloud. Kevin Deakes was stationed in Ballaugh and again the eclipse was seen through clouds.

Some members of the Society were located in the UK on eclipse day and some observations were achieved. Dave Storey and Glyn Marsh travelled to North Scotland to visit Society friend Denis Buczynski at Tarbatness Observatory, Portmahomack. Cloud again was a problem at the beginning of eclipse. The start of eclipse was observed through cloud but the cloud eventually produced rain and it was assumed that maximum eclipse phase (95.2% at 09h38m08s) would be missed. On consulting Sat24 web site for the latest weather satellite imagery, Dave Storey noted a hole in the cloud approaching from the north-west and predicted it would be over Portmahomack at maximum eclipse phase. This proved to be correct. At maximum, the clouds had thinned enough for the Sun to be seen through cloud and photographed. The cloud eventually cleared fully and clear skies prevailed for the rest of the eclipse. At around maximum eclipse phase, the colour of the sky was very dramatic and was dark blue.

Tracey Mister was in Invergorden, Scotland and through clouds, she was able to take a couple of images of the eclipse.

Andrew Craine was fortunate to travel on the cruise ship Buddica that stationed itself south east of Iceland (64° 49' N, 6° 26'W) under the total eclipse path. He was successful in seeing totality through gaps in the cloud. He also created a video time-lapse of the eclipse that can be viewed on You Tube.

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 A Partial Solar Eclipse occurred on 4th January 2011, details of which can be found here.
 Unfortunately, the cloud cover prevented any chance of viewing it from the Isle of Man.  The moon began to eclipse the Sun at 07.03:01h UTC but the Sun was 12.5° below the  local horizon. When the Sun rose at 08.33h, the moon would have covered over half the  Sun's disc. Denis Buczynski has kindly sent some images from Scotland and shown left is  the eclipse at sunrise.

View an animation of a solar eclipse here.

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TOTAL Solar Eclipse is not in itself a particularly unusual event. There were for example 62 such occurrences during the 20th century. However only three of these (29th June, 1927; 30th June, 1954; 11th August, 1999) had a path of totality that crossed the British Isles, none of which included the Isle of Man. Indeed, no path of totality crossed any area of the British Isles for a period of 203 years, between 1724 and 1927. Given that there were "only three" during the 20th century, there have been only twelve since 500 AD, so from that perspective, it was a flush century.

To say the Isle of Man is not exactly blessed with total solar eclipses would be an understatement of major proportions, for the last path of totality that crossed over our fair Isle was on 8th April, 1652. And just in case you were thinking that there must be one bound to appear soon, well, that won't be until 14th June, 2151! There was a tantalisingly near miss for the Island on 29th June, 1927, as can be seen from this illustration showing the path of totality, but this required a trip out into the Irish Sea to witness. In fact such a trip took place, courtesy of the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company on their vessel "Mona". Unsurprisingly, this was dogged by cloud cover. Who would have thought it! One Isle of Man resident, Percy Johnson, was more fortunate however and saw the whole event clearly from a location near Southport. He reported his observations with much enthusiasm on page seven of the Isle of Man Times on the following Saturday, 2nd July, 1927. Unfortunately a scan of the-printout-of-the-microfilm held at the Manx Museum in Douglas, proved rather poor, so in its place you will find a close facsimile to the original text re-typed in the same two-column format, typos and all, in Adobe Reader format here (83 KB).

Partial solar eclipses are common from our Island but unless you know that the actual event is happening, then you would never notice. Annular solar eclipses are even rarer than total eclipses as viewed from the Isle of Man. The last annular eclipse occurred on 24th December, 1601 and the next will not be visible until 2nd October, 2350.

It's fair to say, that if you want to experience a total eclipse, then you will have to journey to one. You may recall that for the vast majority of people attempting to glimpse the 1999 eclipse that crossed Cornwall, the ubiquitous maritime covering of cumulus nimbus masked it for all but a lucky few. So sunnier climes are a much better bet, which means travel and expense. And that is just what some members of the IoMAS have done in the past, and will continue to do so in the future.

Just in case you are a die-hard stay-at-home-in-the-Isle-of-Man type, and you can afford to invest in a cryogenic future, immediately below you'll find a map with your ideal defrosting dates from the year 2100. Bear in mind the disclaimer on our Welcome page though, for we accept no liabilities for any inaccuracies! The year 2200 looks to be a favourite (right bang on top of our Foxdale Observatory), unless you live at the Point of Ayre Lighthouse that is. Don't forget to check with the MET Office at Ronaldsway for the forecast first!

And now to more recent times. A number of our members made trips to destinations in Africa and Turkey to witness the total solar eclipse of 29th March, 2006. Our Chairman Howard Parkin, Treasurer Gary Corlett, and Membership Secretary Dave Storey took the Turkish option, the incriminating evidence of which lies below!