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Solar eclipse of August 21, 1560
Solar eclipse of August 21, 1560
	Map
Type of eclipse
Nature	Total
Gamma	0.405
Magnitude	1.0469
Maximum eclipse
Duration	225 s (3 min 45 s)
Coordinates	29°42′N 5°18′E / 29.7°N 5.3°E
Max. width of band	170 km (110 mi)
Times (UTC)
Greatest eclipse	12:30:55
References
Saros	118 (43 of 72)
Catalog # (SE5000)	8451

A total solar eclipse occurred on August 21, 1560. 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. It's an astronomical phenomenon where, during the moon's orbit around Earth, it passes in from the Sun and causes a solar eclipse. People can't view it with the naked eye, with consequences are horrible as losing your eyesight. Most of the first stages of a solar eclipse can be visible with the naked eye.^[1] 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 kilometers wide. This eclipse is part of solar Saros 118.

Solar eclipses in the ancient world

The Mayans were a very smart group of people, they had a language and had many scribes to write things down. Scribes were very important to the Mayans; they were well educated in astronomy and mathematics. Scribes would study their books called codices. On one of these codices' archeologist William Saturna unearthed was a surprising discovery. The writing had sets of numbers on it 4,784; 4,606; and 4,429. In between these sets of numbers were another set of 177 or 178 estimating the amount of 6 months of lunar phases or semesters. It is believed that based on the lunar cycles of the time this Mayan scribe was recording and predicting solar eclipses (p. 109 - 112).^[2]

Observations

The prediction of this solar eclipse helped to inspire Tycho Brahe's (1546–1601) interest in astronomy at the age of 13.^[3] Tycho was born on December 14, 1546, in Knudstrup, in what is now South Sweden, which then was part of Denmark.^[4]

In the beginning of the 16’th century, people started to observe eclipses and began to enter scientific and historical records. “The whole sun was not eclipsed but that there was a bright circle all around,” wrote the Jesuit astronomer – mathematician, Christopher Clavius upon seeing the eclipse of 1567 (p. 137).^[5]

Christopher Clavius wrote (In Sphaeram Ioannis de Sacro Bosco Commentarius published in 1593), "I shall cite two remarkable eclipses of the Sun, which happened in my own time and thus not long ago. One of these I observed about midday at Coimbra in Lusitania (Portugal) in the year 1559 [sic], in which the Moon was placed between my sight and the Sun with the result that it covered the whole Sun for a considerable length of time. There was darkness in some manner greater than night; neither could one see where one stepped. Stars appeared in the sky and (marvelous to behold) the birds fell down from the sky to the ground in terror of such horrid darkness."^[6]