On Saturday, October 14, 2023, an annular solar eclipse will occur. The path of annular eclipse takes the form of a long and narrow corridor, just 200 kilometres wide on average, stretching from the Pacific to the Atlantic via the continental US (from Oregon to Texas), the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panamá, Colombia and Brazil.
After touching the surface of the Earth at sunrise in the north Pacific Ocean, 1600 kilometres west of Vancouver, the Moon’s antumbra will travel southeastward before making landfall in Oregon. It then crosses northern Nevada, Utah, New Mexico (going over the Four Corners area along the way, including northeastern Arizona and southwestern Colorado) and Texas. The path of annularity then crosses the Gulf of Mexico before cutting across the Yucatán Peninsula. It continues on over Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua, skims the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica, cuts through Panama, and then on through Colombia and the Brazilian States of Amazonas, Pará, Tocantins, Maranhão, Piauí, Ceará, Pernambuco, Paraíba, and finally Rio Grande do Norte. The Moon's antumbra then reaches the Atlantic Ocean where it finally leaves the Earth’s surface at sunset.
The annular eclipse will last about 4 minutes 15 seconds at the extremities of its trajectory, on the eclipse centreline. At the point of maximum eclipse, located just off the coast of Nicaragua, this duration reaches a theoretical value of 5 minutes 17 seconds, with 90.6% of the surface of the Sun covered by the Moon.
Outside the path of annularity, throughout most of North and South America and almost all of Canada including Quebec, we’ll be able to observe a partial eclipse of the Sun. In Canada, the eclipse generally unfolds in the morning hours and early afternoon—just after sunrise in western Canada, later in the day moving eastward. The exact times of the eclipse, its duration and maximum coverage of the Sun by the Moon, depend on the specific geographical coordinates and elevation above sea level at the observer’s location. Broadly speaking, the partial eclipse will be deeper in locations closer to the path of annularity, for instance in southern British Columbia: in Vancouver, about 82% of the surface of the Sun will be hidden at maximum eclipse, whereas this climbs to 89% inside the path of annularity. In southern Québec, near the US Border, obscuration will be just about 19%, and decreases toward the north and east of the Province.
For example, at the Planétarium in Montréal, the eclipse will begin at 12:12:04 Eastern Daylight Time. The partial eclipse will reach its maximum at 13:17:48, with the Moon covering 17.1% of the Sun’s surface, which will stand 35 degrees high in the south. The phenomenon will end at 14:23:50.
Refer to our table giving the local circumstances of the eclipse for dozens of locations across Quebec and Canada.
