The shadow axis passed between the Earth's center and the north pole. The minimum distance from the center of the Earth to the Moon's shadow cone axis was 3,357 kilometers.[2] The average length of the Moon's shadow was 373,320 kilometers. The distance from the Earth to the Moon on 1 May 1185 was 347,727 kilometers.[2] The apparent diameter of the Moon was 1.0736 times that of the Sun.[2] The shadow had a maximum width of 280 kilometers.[3] It began on the west coast of Central America and crossed the Atlantic Ocean in a northeasterly direction. The shadow passed through present-dayNicaragua andHaiti. The maximum duration of the eclipse occurred in the middle of the North Atlantic at coordinates 46°N, 37.2°W.[1]The maximum duration of totality was 5 minutes and 10 seconds.[4] The eclipse magnitude is 1.0736.[1] The eclipse was preceded two weeks earlier by a partial lunar eclipse on April 16.[1]
A partial eclipse came ashore in Scotland, crossed theNorth Sea, and entered Norway. According to astronomer Sheridan Williams, there was probably a drop in temperature at the time of the eclipse, around 2 pm in Scotland.[5] He says that it was Scotland's fifth longest total eclipse at 4 minutes and 40 seconds.[5] Williams also notes that some older observers in Scotland may have also witnessed the previous eclipse, 52 years earlier.[5]
After passing through present-day Sweden, the eclipse touched a part of Finland and covered the northern part of the Baltic Sea at theGulf of Finland. The eclipse then entered Russia. The eclipse's shadow touched part of what would beSt. Petersburg, as well asNovgorod andRostov. As the shadow journeyed in a southeasterly direction, it passed through the modern sites ofNizhny Novgorod,Kazan,Ufa, andMagnitogorsk. The eclipse shadow started diminishing when it entered present-dayKazakhstan and extinguished completely about 30 miles before reachingAstana.[6][7][8][9]
The sun dimming on Igor's campaign, as illustrated byIvan Blinov (1912) in the first artistic representation of the epic.[10]
The eclipse was mentioned in theKievan Rus' epic poemLay of the Host of Igor.[11] It was seen by PrinceIgor Svyatoslavich and his army whilst on their campaign against thePolovtsians,[12] and was interpreted as a message from God prophesying trouble,[13] frightening Igor's men who thought it a bad omen.[14][15] According to theLay, after the eclipse Igor gave a long speech to hisretinue to allay their fears before proceeding on his campaign.[16]
On the first day of the month of May, on the day of the Saint Prophet Jeremiah, on Wednesday, during the evening service, there was a sign in the Sun. It became very dark, even the stars could be seen; it seemed to men as if everything were green, and the Sun became like a crescent of the Moon, from the horns of which a glow similar to that of red-hot charcoals was emanating. It was terrible to see this sign of the Lord.[22][23]
TheMelrose Chronicle claims that "stars appeared" atMelrose in Scotland during the eclipse of 1185, but this is doubted by the writer Thomas Cooper, who notes that scientific calculations indicate that the eclipse was not total at Melrose.[24]
TheBrut y Tywysogion, the Welsh Chronicle of the Princes, says of the solar eclipse of 1 May 1185,Yn y ulwyddyn honno dyw Calan Mei y sumudawd yr heul y lliw; ac y dywat rei uot anei diffyc, which translates as:In that year on the day of theCalends of May the Sun changed its colour; and some said that it was under an eclipse. Bryn Jones believes there was a total solar eclipse across the Scottish Highlands, theWestern Isles andOrkney.[25][26]
^Svyatskiy D.O. "Astronomical Phenomena in Russian chronicles with scientific and critical perspective" in Svyatskiy D.O.Астрономия Древней Руси (Astronomy in Ancient Russia). Moscow: Panorama, 2007, pp. 45–49(in Russian).
^Sanderson & Harrington 2006, p. 41: "1185 - RussianChronicle of Novgorod describes a solar prominence seen during a total solar eclipse as appearing like 'live embers.' A prominence is a flamelike cloud of glowing gas extending upward from the Sun's surface that is often visible during a total eclipse."
^Jones, Bryn (2008)."The History of Astronomy in Wales".References to eclipses in ancient manuscripts. Bryn Jones. Archived fromthe original on March 4, 2016. RetrievedMarch 30, 2015.. The translation is cited there fromJones, Thomas (1955).Brut y Tywysogyon, or, the Chronicle of the Princes: Red Book of Hergest version. Cardiff:University of Wales Press.
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