A total solar eclipse occurred at the Moon's ascending node of orbit between Tuesday, June 28 and Wednesday, June 29, 1927,[1] with a magnitude of 1.0128. A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby totally or partly obscuring the image of the Sun for a viewer on Earth. A total solar eclipse occurs when the Moon's apparent diameter is larger than the Sun's, blocking all direct sunlight, turning day into darkness. 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 only about 20 hours after perigee (on June 28, 1927, at 10:40 UTC), the Moon's apparent diameter was larger.[2]
The path of totality crossed far northern Europe and Asia, including the United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Soviet Union (today's Russia) on June 29 (Wednesday), and finally passed Amukta in Alaska on June 28 (Tuesday). A partial eclipse was visible for parts of Europe, North Africa, North Asia, and northern North America.
This was the first total eclipse visible from British mainland soil for 203 years. The Astronomer Royal set up a camp to observe the eclipse from the grounds of Giggleswick School in North Yorkshire, which was on the line of totality.[3] [4] An observer at Southport, where an estimated quarter of a million people were on the shore to watch, described the eclipse for the Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, describing it as "those memorable 23 seconds ... a landmark forever in the lives of those privileged to see for the first time the Sun's Corona, whose secrets are only revealed to us for some few minutes in each century."[5]
This eclipse is referenced in the closing pages of Dorothy L. Sayers' novel Unnatural Death.[6] Frances Brody's 2017 novel Death in the Stars is set at Giggleswick School while crowds were there to view the eclipse.[7]
Virginia Woolf recorded her impression of the eclipse, including the words "We had fallen. It was extinct. There was no colour. The earth was dead."[8]
Shown below are two tables displaying details about this particular solar eclipse. The first table outlines times at which the moon's penumbra or umbra attains the specific parameter, and the second table describes various other parameters pertaining to this eclipse.[9]
| First Penumbral External Contact | 1927 June 29 at 04:00:07.6 UTC | |
| First Umbral External Contact | 1927 June 29 at 05:20:27.1 UTC | |
| First Central Line | 1927 June 29 at 05:20:38.0 UTC | |
| First Umbral Internal Contact | 1927 June 29 at 05:20:49.1 UTC | |
| Greatest Duration | 1927 June 29 at 06:21:22.6 UTC | |
| Greatest Eclipse | 1927 June 29 at 06:23:27.1 UTC | |
| Equatorial Conjunction | 1927 June 29 at 06:27:51.0 UTC | |
| Ecliptic Conjunction | 1927 June 29 at 06:32:16.1 UTC | |
| Last Umbral Internal Contact | 1927 June 29 at 07:26:05.2 UTC | |
| Last Central Line | 1927 June 29 at 07:26:13.4 UTC | |
| Last Umbral External Contact | 1927 June 29 at 07:26:21.6 UTC | |
| Last Penumbral External Contact | 1927 June 29 at 08:46:50.3 UTC |
| Eclipse Magnitude | 1.01277 | |
| Eclipse Obscuration | 1.02570 | |
| Gamma | 0.81630 | |
| Sun Right Ascension | 06h28m24.1s | |
| Sun Declination | +23°17'17.5" | |
| Sun Semi-Diameter | 15'43.9" | |
| Sun Equatorial Horizontal Parallax | 08.6" | |
| Moon Right Ascension | 06h28m13.9s | |
| Moon Declination | +24°04'25.1" | |
| Moon Semi-Diameter | 15'47.4" | |
| Moon Equatorial Horizontal Parallax | 0°57'56.9" | |
| ΔT | 24.4 s |
See also: Eclipse cycle. This eclipse is part of an eclipse season, a period, roughly every six months, when eclipses occur. Only two (or occasionally three) eclipse seasons occur each year, and each season lasts about 35 days and repeats just short of six months (173 days) later; thus two full eclipse seasons always occur each year. Either two or three eclipses happen each eclipse season. In the sequence below, each eclipse is separated by a fortnight.