How the eclipse will look from Puerto Vallarta

The first solar eclipse of 2002 is annular with a path that stretches the breadth of the Pacific Ocean. The partial phases are visible from eastern Asia and most of North America except for the northeast (Figure 2).

The Moon's antumbral shadow first touches down on Earth at 20:53 UT along the north coast of Sulawesi. Racing across the Celebes Sea, the antumbra engulfs the Indonesian islands of Pulau Sangihe and Kepulauan Talaud. The annular phase lasts just over one minute with the early morning. Sun above the horizon.

Leaving Indonesia, the shadow's trajectory takes it over a long track across the Pacific. As it does so, the curvature of Earth's surface causes the path width and central duration to gradually decrease. The antumbra reaches the southern end of the Northern Mariana Islands chain at 22:10 UT (Figure 3). Guam lies just 40 kilometres south of the 47 kilometre wide path and will experience a deep partial eclipse of magnitude 0.975. About 180 kilometres northeast of Guam, the islands Saipan and Tinian span the northern limit of the annular track. Tinian's southern tip extends a dozen kilometres into the path but still falls 10 kilometres short of the center line. Nevertheless, most of the 53 second long annular phase of magnitude 0.988 will be seen from this location with the Sun above the horizon.

From this point on, the antumbra encounters no other populated islands across the Pacific. Greatest eclipse occurs at 23:48:15 UT about 2600 kilometres northwest of the Hawaiian Islands. The duration of the annular phase lasts a scant 23 seconds, but the event takes place in open ocean with no landfall in sight.

As the track begins to swing to the southeast, its width and central duration begin to increase once again but no other islands lie in its path. Just before reaching its terminus, the antumbra passes 50 kilometres south of the southern tip of Baja, Mexico at 01:32 UT (Figure 4). In the final seconds of its earthbound trajectory, the shadow reaches the Pacific coast of Mexico, 30 kilometres south of Puerto Vallarta. Under favorable weather conditions, observers on the center line will witness a spectacular ring of fire on the horizon as the Sun sets just after annularity. The central duration is 1 minute 7 seconds and the magnitude is 0.981. Atmospheric refraction will actually displace the end of the path to the southeast so that the entire annular phase will occur before sunset for observes on or near the coast.

The antumbral shadow leaves Earth's surface at 01:35 UT. Over the course of 3 hours and 47 minutes, the Moon's antumbra travels along a path approximately 14,700 kilometres long and covering 0.2% of Earth's surface area. Path coordinates and centreline circumstances are presented in Table 1.

Partial phases of the eclipse are visible from much of North America, the Pacific and western Asia. Local circumstances for a number of cities are listed in Table 2. All times are given in Universal Time. The Sun's altitude and azimuth, the eclipse magnitude and obscuration are all given at the instant of maximum eclipse.