Solar Eclipses from 2001 to 2010

Animated GIFs of Solar Eclipses from 2001 to 2010

Michael Zeiler of GreatAmericanEclipse.com and Fred Espenak of EclipseWise.com have created a series of eclipse animations - one for every solar eclipse during the 21st Century.

The animations show the path of the Moon's shadows as they sweep across a global map of Earth (an orthographic projection). The vantage point of the animation is as seen from the Moon. The daylight hemisphere of Earth then faces the Moon and the lunar shadows appear perfectly circular with no distorted projection effects as they race across Earth. Another consequence of this viewing geometry is that the Moon's shadows move across the disk of Earth in a straight line.

For all eclipses, the Moon's large, pale penumbral shadow appears as a lightly shaded circle and is outlined with a solid black edge. For Total, Annular, and Hybrid eclipses, the Moon's much smaller inner shadow (either umbra or antumbral) appears as a tiny black disk and tracks along the path of totality or annularity (yellow strip). A partial eclipse is visible from within the penumbra, while a total or annular eclipse is visible inside the umbra or antumbra.

Each animation includes important information in the four corners. In the upper left corner is the type of eclipse and the eclipse date. To the upper right is the Universal Time. The lower left corner displays the instantaneous duration of totality or annularity (not used for partial eclipses). To the lower right is the credit for the animation.

Animations are available in three sizes/resolutions: small (300 x 300 pixels), medium (400 x 400 pixels), and large (800 x 800 pixels). The GIFs at 300 x 300 pixel resolutions are shown below. For GIFs at 400 x 400 pixel and 800 x 800 pixel sizes, visit eclipsewise.com/solar/SEdecade/SEanimate2001.html#animate2001

Note that these GIFs make take a few moments to load if you do not have a fast Internet connection.

These animations may be freely used through Creative Commons. You may use and distribute these eclipse animations as long as they are not modified and you include an attribution: Solar Eclipse Global Animation by Fred Espenak, eclipsewise.com, and Michael Zeiler, greatamericaneclipse.com.

The solar eclipse global animations by Fred Espenak and Michael Zeiler are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on work at EclipseWise.com and GreatAmericanEclipse.com