An annular solar eclipse occurred at the Moon's descending node of orbit on Sunday, September 11, 1988, with a magnitude of 0.9377. 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. 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). An annular eclipse appears as a partial eclipse over a region of the Earth thousands of kilometres wide. Occurring only 12.5 hours after apogee (on September 10, 1988, at 16:10 UTC), the Moon's apparent diameter was smaller.
Annularity was visible in southeastern Somalia (including the capital city Mogadishu), the Indian Ocean and Macquarie Island of Australia. A partial eclipse was visible for parts of East Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand.
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.