Solar eclipse of May 10, 1994
# Solar eclipse of May 10, 1994

An annular solar eclipse occurred at the moon's descending node of its orbit on Tuesday, May 10, 1994. It was visible over a wide swath of North America, from Baja California across the Midwest of the United States up through Ontario and Nova Scotia in Canada. Occurring only 1.6 days after apogee (Perigee on Monday, May 9, 1994 at 02:18 UTC or Sunday, May 8, 1994 at 22:18 EDT or 19:18 PDT), the moon's apparent diameter was smaller than the sun. This solar eclipse belonged to Saros series 128.

## The Annular Eclipse of May 10, 1994

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. If the eclipse is a central one, it will be either total, annular or a combination of both, called a hybrid eclipse. In a total eclipse, the moon's size as seen from earth is large enough to block all of the disk of the sun.

An annular solar eclipse occurs when the Moon's apparent diameter is smaller than the Sun's, blocking most of the Sun's light and causing the Sun to look like an annulus (ring), which means there is a ring of light from the sun around the dark moon. An annular eclipse appears as a partial eclipse over a region of the Earth thousands of kilometres wide.

The path of annularity crossed four states of Mexico (Baja California Sur, Baja California, Sonora and Chihuahua), the United States, the Canadian provinces of Ontario, Nova Scotia and the southeastern tip of Quebec, Azores Islands except Santa Maria Island, and part of Morocco including the capital city Rabat. Niagara Falls was also covered by the path of annularity.

The eclipse reached its moment of "greatest eclipse" in the United States near Wauseon, Ohio, about 35 miles west of Toledo, Ohio.

The Columbus Crew were originally named the "Columbus Eclipse" in their Major League Soccer bid in honor of the event.

## Related eclipses

### Eclipses of 1994

* An annular solar eclipse on May 10.
* A partial lunar eclipse on May 25.
* A total solar eclipse on November 3.
* A penumbral lunar eclipse on November 18.

### Solar eclipses 1993–1996

This eclipse is a member of a semester series. An eclipse in a semester series of solar eclipses repeats approximately every 177 days and 4 hours (a semester) at alternating nodes of the Moon's orbit.

Solar eclipse series sets from 1993–1996 :

| Descending node | Descending node | Descending node | Ascending node | Ascending node | Ascending node |
| - | - | - | - | - | - |
| Saros | Map | Gamma | Saros | Map | Gamma |
| 118 | 1993 May 21 Partial | 1.13720 | 123 | 1993 November 13 Partial | -1.04114 |
| 128 Partial from Bismarck, ND | 1994 May 10 Annular | 0.40771 | 133 Totality at Bolivia | 1994 November 3 Total | -0.35216 |
| 138 | 1995 April 29 Annular | -0.33821 | 143 Totality at Dundlod, India | 1995 October 24 Total | 0.35176 |
| 148 | 1996 April 17 Partial | -1.05796 | 153 | 1996 October 12 Partial | 1.12265 |

### Saros 128

This eclipse is a member of the Solar Saros cycle 128, which includes 73 eclipses occurring in intervals of 18 years and 11 days. The series started with partial solar eclipse on August 29, 984 AD. From May 16, 1417 through June 18, 1471 the series produced total solar eclipses, followed by hybrid solar eclipses from June 28, 1489 through July 31, 1543, and annular solar eclipses from August 11, 1561 through July 25, 2120. The series ends at member 73 as a partial eclipse on November 1, 2282. All eclipses in this series occurs at the Moon’s descending node.

Series members 52–68 occur between 1901 and 2200 :

| 52 | 53 | 54 |
| - | - | - |
| March 17, 1904 | March 28, 1922 | April 7, 1940 |
| 55 | 56 | 57 |
| April 19, 1958 | April 29, 1976 | May 10, 1994 |
| 58 | 59 | 60 |
| May 20, 2012 | June 1, 2030 | June 11, 2048 |
| 61 | 62 | 63 |
| June 22, 2066 | July 3, 2084 | July 15, 2102 |
| 64 | 65 | 66 |
| July 25, 2120 | August 5, 2138 (Partial) | August 16, 2156 (Partial) |
| 67 | 68 |
| August 27, 2174 (Partial) | September 6, 2192 (Partial) |

### Inex series

This eclipse is a part of the long period inex cycle, repeating at alternating nodes, every 358 synodic months (≈ 10,571.95 days, or 29 years minus 20 days). Their appearance and longitude are irregular due to a lack of synchronization with the anomalistic month (period of perigee). However, groupings of 3 inex cycles (≈ 87 years minus 2 months) comes close (≈ 1,151.02 anomalistic months), so eclipses are similar in these groupings.

Inex series members between 1901 and 2100: :

| July 10, 1907 (Saros 125) | June 19, 1936 (Saros 126) | May 30, 1965 (Saros 127) |
| - | - | - |
| May 10, 1994 (Saros 128) | April 20, 2023 (Saros 129) | March 30, 2052 (Saros 130) |
| March 10, 2081 (Saros 131) | |

### Metonic cycle

The metonic series repeats eclipses every 19 years (6939.69 days), lasting about 5 cycles. Eclipses occur in nearly the same calendar date. In addition, the octon subseries repeats 1/5 of that or every 3.8 years (1387.94 days). All eclipses in this table occur at the Moon's descending node.

21 events between July 22, 1971 and July 22, 2047 :

| July 21–22 | May 9–11 | February 26–27 | December 14–15 | October 2–3 |
| - | - | - | - | - |
| 116 | 118 | 120 | 122 | 124 |
| July 22, 1971 | May 11, 1975 | February 26, 1979 | December 15, 1982 | October 3, 1986 |
| 126 | 128 | 130 | 132 | 134 |
| July 22, 1990 | May 10, 1994 | February 26, 1998 | December 14, 2001 | October 3, 2005 |
| 136 | 138 | 140 | 142 | 144 |
| July 22, 2009 | May 10, 2013 | February 26, 2017 | December 14, 2020 | October 2, 2024 |
| 146 | 148 | 150 | 152 | 154 |
| July 22, 2028 | May 9, 2032 | February 27, 2036 | December 15, 2039 | October 3, 2043 |
| 156 |
| July 22, 2047 |
