Local Circumstances of a Solar Eclipse

Computation of possibility of observing solar eclipse at the observer's location

Although the track of the central line for a solar eclipse is often known and published years in advance, yearbooks generally contain no details of the local circumstances of an eclipse for a specific observing site. The test_EclTimer.m (as an extension to the test_Eclipse.m) enables the local circumstances of an eclipse to be calculated for any given point. The geometrical requirement for observing first or fourth contact at solar eclipses is that the observer shall be located somewhere on the curved boundary of the Moon’s penumbra. Second and third contact, in contrast, occur when the observer is at the boundary of the umbral shadow.

The test_EclTimer.m script receives the date of the new moon (highlighted with the letter 'c' in the "Moon Phases" program results at the link below), the geographical longitude (positive for east) and latitude of the observer in degrees, and then determines the possibility of observing a solar eclipse at the observer's location.

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/118770-moon-phases?s_tid=srchtitle

References:

Montenbruck O., Pfleger T.; Astronomy on the Personal Computer; Springer Verlag, Heidelberg; 4th edition (2000).

https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/LEcat5/deltatpoly.html