Mozaffari, Seyyed Mohammad (Author)
Journal of the British Astronomical Association
Volume: 123, no. 1
Issue: 1
Pages: 33-36
This paper reviews ancient and medieval reports of annular eclipses and investigates the phenomenon in the historical and astronomical context. In the ancient period, there are some rather doubtful reports of annular eclipses. However, from that period some documented accounts of the phenomenon and some considerations on the angular diameters of the luminaries are known, which make an annular eclipse possible. Nevertheless, in the Ptolemaic context, since the minimum angular diameters of the Sun and Moon are assumed equal, there was no justified basis for an annular eclipse. In the medieval period, some observational reports (esp. of 873 and 1283 AD) provided strong support for the idea of an annular eclipse. In an attempt to justify this evidence, which was hard to reconcile with Ptolemaic astronomy, astronomers revived some ancient hypotheses as appropriate alternatives. Moreover, some optical and astronomical considerations are involved in the observation of annular eclipses. The diminution of daylight during an annular eclipse is so small that the phenomenon might pass unnoticed; and the effect of irradiation makes it difficult to trust historical reports. Therefore, it seems that the rarity of historical reports on annular eclipses is due to both historical conditions and astronomical considerations.
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