A total solar eclipse occurred at the Moon's descending node of orbit on Wednesday, May 17, 1882, with a magnitude of 1.0200. 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 about 4.2 days after perigee (on May 13, 1882, at 2:45 UTC), the Moon's apparent diameter was larger.
The path of totality was visible from parts of modern-day Burkina Faso, Ghana, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and China. A partial solar eclipse was also visible for parts of Africa, Europe, and Asia.
A party of observers gathered in Egypt to watch the eclipse were greatly surprised when they observed a bright streak near to the Sun once totality began. By a remarkable coincidence, the eclipse had coincided with the perihelion passage of a Kreutz comet. The comet would otherwise have gone unnoticedâÂÂits sighting during the eclipse was the only observation of it. Photographs of the eclipse revealed that the comet had moved noticeably during the 1m50s eclipse, as would be expected for a comet racing past the Sun at almost 500 km/s. The comet is sometimes referred to as Tewfik, after Tewfik Pasha, the Khedive of Egypt at the time.
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.
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.
The solar eclipses on January 11, 1880 (total), July 7, 1880 (annular), and December 31, 1880 (partial) occur in the previous lunar year eclipse set, and the partial solar eclipse on March 27, 1884 occurs in the next lunar year eclipse set.