One of the most celebrated eclipses during the Middle Ages was undoubtedly that of June 17, 1433. This was long remembered in Scotland as the “Black Hour,” and its circumstances were fully investigated some years ago by Hind. It was a remarkable eclipse in that the Moon was within 13° of perigee and the Sun only 2° from apogee. The central line traversed Scotland in a south-easterly direction from Ross to Forfar, passing near Inverness and Dundee. Maclaurin[88] who lived in the early part of the last century mentions that in his time a manuscript account of this eclipse was preserved in the library of the University of Edinburgh wherein the darkness is said to have come on at about 3 p.m., and to have been very profound. The duration of the totality at Inverness was 4m. 32s.; at Edinburgh 3m. 41s. The central line passed from Britain to the N. of Frankfort-on-the-Maine, through Bavaria, to the Dardanelles, to the S. of Aleppo and thence nearly parallel to the river Euphrates to the N.-E. border of Arabia. In Turkey, according to Calvisius, “near evening the light of the Sun was so overpowered that darkness covered the land.”
In 1544, on Jan. 24, there occurred an eclipse of the Sun which was nearly but not quite total. The chief interest arises from the fact that it was one of the first observed by professed astronomers: Gemma Frisius saw it at Louvain.
Kepler says[89] that the day became dark like the twilight of evening and that the birds which from the break of day had been singing became mute. The middle of the eclipse was at about 9 a.m.
In 1560 an eclipse of the Sun took place which was total in Spain and Portugal. Clavius who observed it at Coimbra says[90] that “the Sun remained obscured for no little time: there was darkness greater than that of night, no one could see where he trod and the stars shone very brightly in the sky: the birds moreover, wonderful to say, fell down to the ground in fright at such startling darkness.” Kepler is responsible for the statement that Tycho Brahe did not believe this, and wrote to Clavius to that effect 40 years afterwards.
In 1567 there was an annular eclipse visible at Rome on April 9. Clavius says[91] that “the whole Sun was not eclipsed but that there was left a bright circle all round.” This in set terms is a description of an annular eclipse, but Johnston who calculated that at Rome the greatest obscuration took place at 20m. past noon points out that the augmentation of the Moon’s semi-diameter would almost have produced totality. Tycho tells us that he saw this eclipse on the shores of the Baltic when a young man about 20 years of age.
The total eclipse of February 25, 1598, long left a special mark on the memories of the people of Scotland. The day was spoken of as “Black Saturday.” Maclaurin states[92]:—“There is a tradition that some persons in the North lost their way in the time of this eclipse, and perished in the snow”—a statement which Hind discredits. The central line passed from near Stranraer, over Dalkeith, and therefore Edinburgh was within the zone of totality. Totality came on at Edinburgh at 10h. 15m. and lasted 1m. 30s. From the rapid motion of the Moon in declination, the course of the central line was a quickly ascending one in latitude on the Earth’s surface, the totality passing off within the Arctic circle.
Kepler in his account of the new star in the constellation Ophiuchus[93] refers to the total eclipse of the Sun of October 12, 1605, as having been observed at Naples, and that the “Red Flames” were visible as a rim of red light round the Sun’s disc: at least this seems to be the construction which may fairly be put upon the Latin of the original description.
The partial eclipse of the Sun of May 30, 1612, is recorded to have been seen “through a tube.” No doubt this is an allusion to the newly-invented instrument which we now call the telescope. Seemingly this is the first eclipse of the Sun so observed, but it is on record that an eclipse of the Moon had been previously observed through a telescope. This was the lunar eclipse of July 6, 1610, though the observer’s name has not been handed down to us.
The eclipse of April 8, 1652, is another of those Scotch eclipses, as we may call them, which left their mark on the people of that country. Maclaurin[94] speaks of it in his time (he died in 1746) as one of the two central eclipses which are “still famous among the populace in this country” [Scotland], and “known amongst them by the appellation of Mirk Monday.” The central line passed over the S.E. of Ireland, near Wexford and Wicklow, and reaching Scotland near Burrow Head in Wigtownshire, and passing not far from Edinburgh, Montrose and Aberdeen, quitted Scotland at Peterhead. Greenock and Elgin were near the northern limit of the zone of totality, and the Cheviots and Berwick upon the southern limit. The eclipse was observed at Carrickfergus by Dr. Wyberd.[95] Hind found that its duration there was but 44s. This short duration, he suggested, may partly explain the curious remark of Dr. Wyberd that when the Sun was reduced to “a very slender crescent of light, the Moon all at once threw herself within the margin of the solar disc with such agility that she seemed to revolve like an upper millstone, affording a pleasant spectacle of rotatory motion.” Wyberd’s further description clearly applies to the Corona. A Scotch account says that “the country people tilling, loosed their ploughs. The birds dropped to the ground.”
The eclipse of November 4, 1668, visible as a partial one in England, was of no particular interest in itself but deserves notice as having been observed by Flamsteed,[96] who gives a few diagrams of his observations at Derby. He states that the eclipse came on much earlier than had been predicted. It was well known at this time that the tables of the Sun and Moon then in use were very defective, and it was a recognition of this fact which eventually led to the foundation of the Greenwich Observatory in 1675.