Error budget
- Nobody has published a complete budget. Quaglia and colleagues state the ephemeris, Earth-orientation and topography terms and conclude the solar radius dominates. Espenak states the limb and ΔT terms. Wright and Young state the terrain rule. The table below assembles all three with the arithmetic that joins them 1 2 3.
- Three terms of 0.6 to 3 km each at the edge: the solar radius if the standard value is used, the lunar limb if omitted, and terrain if omitted. Everything else is under 100 m and 0.5 s.
- Two gross errors are worth guarding against first: a geometric Sun paired with an apparent Moon (38 km) and TT used where UT belongs (32 km). They are implementation bugs, not modelling choices 4 5.
- The residual for a true-limb, terrain-corrected product with 959.95″ is about 100 m from the radius uncertainty, plus 60 to 130 m of spread between implementations given the same inputs 1.
- ΔT prediction error grows as the square of the lead time: 0.05 s at one year, 4.6 s at twenty, 52 s at a hundred, and 265 s or more before the year 1 and after 2300 6 7.
The ranked budget
"Mid-path" is a site near the central line of a 2017-class eclipse with a shadow speed near 1 km/s. "Edge" is within a few hundred metres of a limit. Conversions used: 1″ at the Moon's mean distance is 1.86 km on the ground; 1 s of ΔT is 15.041″ of longitude, 465 m at the equator and 356 m at 40°; the relative Moon-Sun motion of 0.364″/s gives 2.7 s of contact time per arcsecond 8 9.
| Rank | Term | Mid-path contact time | Edge position or duration | Included by |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Geometric Sun with apparent Moon | 55 s | 38 km | Everyone avoids it; test for it 4 |
| 2 | TT used as UT | 69 s | 32 km at the equator | Everyone avoids it; test for it 10 |
| 3 | Sphere instead of ellipsoid | tens of s | up to 21 km | Everyone 11 |
| 4 | Terrain omitted | seconds where the Sun's azimuth lies along the track | ; up to 3 km in the 2017 western states | SVS only, for the path; single-site altitude in Jubier, Occult, Swiss Ephemeris 12 13 |
| 5 | Lunar limb omitted | 1 to 3 s, up to 15 s in extreme geometry | 1 to 3 km per limit; 33 s of duration at Stephenville 2024 | SVS, Jubier, Occult, Irwin, Photo Ephemeris simulator 14 15 |
| 6 | Solar radius 959.63″ against 959.95″ | 1.6 to 1.8 s of central-line duration | 600 m per limit; 19.3 s at a site 1.2 km inside the Vale 2017 limit as drawn with 959.63″; 11 s at Stephenville | Irwin uses 959.95″, Photo Ephemeris in its bead simulator only; everyone else 959.63″ or 696,000 km 16 17 |
| 7 | Lunar radius , umbral, if the IAU value is used | about 4 s of duration | 1.4 km per limit | Espenak, Stellarium, Jubier use 0.272281; USNO and Astronomy Engine use a mean radius; the Swiss Ephemeris uses 1738.15 km globally but scales the lunar radius by 0.99916, which is 0.272281, for C2 and C3 18 19 |
| 8 | ΔT prediction error, realised in 2024 | 1.4 to 2.3 s | 500 to 800 m east-west at 40° | All; the miss depends on when the prediction was frozen 20 21 |
| 9 | Centre of figure against centre of mass, smooth-Moon products | up to 1.4 s | 0.5 to 1 km | Absorbed by any DEM-based profile; not applied by USNO 22 23 |
| 10 | Watts-era limb data | 0.5 s | 600 to 750 m systematic at some position angles | Superseded by Kaguya and LOLA 24 25 |
| 11 | Geoid against ellipsoid height | under 1 s | , up to 170 m at a 30° Sun | SVS (EGM96); nobody else documents it 26 |
| 12 | Implementation spread on identical inputs | 2 to 4 s at Vale 2017 | 0.03″ to 0.07″ of radius, 60 to 130 m | Occult, Solar Eclipse Maestro, Irwin 1 |
| 13 | Solar radius residual, ± 0.05″ | 0.1 s | 100 m band | The physical floor 16 |
| 14 | Limb sampling coarser than 18,000 elements | 0.25 s for 0.2° bins | part of the implementation spread | SVS at 0.02° 27 28 |
| 15 | Refraction, Sun above 5° | under 1 s at C2 and C3 | a few metres | Nobody; cancels in the relative angle 13 |
| 16 | Refraction, C1 and C4 with the Sun at 1° to 5° | 10 to 80 s, unpredictable | not applicable | Nobody; state it 4 |
| 17 | Sidereal time inconsistency, mean against apparent | up to 1.1 s | up to 0.5 km | Consistent in every predictor documented 29 |
| 18 | UT1 against UTC | up to 0.9 s | up to 0.42 km | UT1 printed by Espenak, SVS, Swiss Ephemeris 30 |
| 19 | Moon light-time omitted | 1.9 s | 1.3 km | Apparent places include it 31 |
| 20 | Ephemeris, DE421 to DE440 | under 0.01 s | under 1 m | Irrelevant 32 |
| 21 | Ephemeris, DE403 to DE421, at 2020 | 0.02 s | 16 m | Irrelevant 33 |
| 22 | ELP-2000/82 truncated as in the Canon | 0.02 s | 10 m | Irrelevant for paths 34 |
| 23 | Polar motion | 0 | about 10 m | SPICE kernels include it; nobody documents it 30 |
| 24 | Nutation model, 1980 against 2000A | 0 | under 20 m | Irrelevant 29 |
| 25 | TT against TDB | 1.7 ms | 2 m | Irrelevant 29 |
| 26 | Observer position, consumer GPS | none on time | ± 100 m | The observer's problem 25 |
| 27 | Observer clock, visual timing | "a couple of seconds" | same | The observer's problem 15 |
ΔT by lead time and epoch
The a priori uncertainty of ΔT, from Huber's model as used by NASA for the future and from Morrison and Stephenson's rule with in centuries from 1820 for the past 6 7.
| Lead time or year | Longitude at 40° | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 year ahead | 0.05 s | 18 m |
| 5 years ahead | 0.6 s | 0.2 km |
| 20 years ahead | 4.6 s | 1.6 km |
| 100 years ahead | 52 s | 18 km |
| Year 1900 | 0.1 s | 36 m |
| Year 1700 | 5 s | 1.8 km |
| Year 1000 | 54 s | 19 km |
| Year 0 | 265 s | 94 km |
| Year −1000 | 636 s | 226 km |
| Year 3000 | 1885 s | 670 km |
Successive historical analyses differ by more than these sigmas: the 1986 and 1997 Stephenson curves differ by 1294 s at AD 300. A past-eclipse product must draw the gore, as the Canon does for every year before 1 and after 2300 35 36.
The two modes
The budget separates cleanly into what a product can control and what it chooses.
Almanac mode. Smooth Moon with and to match the NASA GSFC tables or to match EclipseWise and the bulletins, , sea level, the ΔT printed with the table. The result matches NASA or EclipseWise to 1 km at the limits and 0.1 s at a site, and carries their errors: about 2 km at a limit from rows 4 to 6 combined. This is the mode for catalogues, for reproducing published tables, and for regression tests.
Edge mode. LOLA profile at 18,000 elements, terrain with geoid, , ΔT refreshed to the latest USNO or IERS value. The residual is rows 12 and 13: about 100 to 200 m at a limit and 2 to 4 s of duration a few hundred metres inside it. Dunham's practical margin of 2 km of umbral depthumbral depthThe perpendicular distance from an observing site to the nearer limit of the umbral path, as reported by Jubier's map. IOTA recommends at least 2 km when the limit was computed with the canonical radius. covers the instrumental sensitivity to faint beads that no computation removes 37.
The two modes differ by design and must not share a file. A map that draws an almanac-mode limit next to an edge-mode duration misleads by 600 m.
How to report it
Sum the rows that apply in quadrature and print the total with the limit as a band. Draw the limit at and at . Within 2 km of a limit, print the umbral depth and a warning that the radius uncertainty dominates. For dates outside 1600 to 2300, add the ΔT gore. Store the configuration record beside the number so that two runs can be compared term by term 16 1.
References
- 1peer-reviewed Quaglia, Irwin, Emmanouilidis & Pessi (2021), Estimation of the Eclipse Solar Radius by Flash Spectrum Video Analysis, ApJS 256:36 Full PDF read (var/downloads/quaglia2021_flash_spectrum_ApJS.txt). Flash-spectrum video from a site a few hundred metres inside the 2017 southern limit near Vale, Oregon. S = 959.95 +/- 0.05 arcsec. Gives sensitivity of duration and limit distance to solar radius, and compares Irwin's model with Occult and Solar Eclipse Maestro.
- 2primary Espenak, Total Solar Eclipse of 2024 Apr 08, NASA GSFC interactive Google map page Full HTML read via curl (var/downloads/gsfc_SE2024Apr08Tgoogle.html). VSOP87/ELP2000-85 ephemerides, Delta T = 70.6 s, no limb profile, limits may shift 1 to 3 km, durations 1 to 3 s, greatest-duration point 10 to 20 km.
- 3peer-reviewed Wright & Young (2024), A Raster-oriented Method for Creating Eclipse Maps, AJ 168:163 Full text read from a saved copy (var/downloads/wright2024_aj_clean.txt). Documents the SVS method: DE421, SLDEM2015 and LDEM, limb profile of 18,000 elements, h cot a terrain shift, polygonal umbra, and the 2024 solar-radius controversy.
- 4peer-reviewed Explanatory Supplement to the Astronomical Almanac, P. K. Seidelmann ed. (University Science Books, 1992) Sections 2.553 (Stephenson and Morrison 1984 parabolas), 3.244 (terrestrial coordinates, MERIT 1983 ellipsoid), 3.283 (low-precision refraction, 34 arcmin horizontal refraction), 3.351 and 3.352 (IAU 1976 ellipsoid, GMST), 7.3 (apparent places include aberration), 8.12, 8.342, 8.353, 8.362 and 8.363 (eclipses: apparent places, shadow radius at height, height above the geoid, refraction as a refinement, the delta-T longitude correction). Read from the archive.org OCR text in var/downloads/es1992_djvu.txt.
- 5company Skyfield documentation: Positions Read. Definitions of barycentric, astrometric (light-time) and apparent (aberration and deflection) positions, ICRS and GCRS usage, ICRS axes within 0.02 arcsec of J2000.
- 6primary Uncertainty in Delta T (NASA Eclipse Web Site) Read in full. Huber Brownian-motion model for sigma outside the observed span (Q = 0.058 ms^2/yr, M = 2500 yr), the 0.8 t^2 parabola for 1000 BCE to 1200 CE, and the longitude equivalents of the errors.
- 7primary Espenak, Uncertainty in Delta T, NASA GSFC eclipse site (2007), adapted from the Five Millennium Canon Full HTML read via curl. Morrison & Stephenson 2004 sigma = 0.8 t^2, tables of sigma and longitude uncertainty from -4000 to +5000, Huber 2000 model.
- 8primary Espenak & Meeus (2009), Five Millennium Catalog of Solar Eclipses, NASA TP-2009-214174, and the Canon text (2006) section 1.6 Map Accuracy Local text read (var/downloads/5MCSE-Text11.txt and TP2009-214174.txt). Lunar ephemeris better than an arcsecond within centuries, 240 s of Delta T equals 1 degree of longitude, reference gores when sigma exceeds 265 s.
- 9primary Espenak, Anderson (1999). Total Solar Eclipse of 2001 June 21. NASA/TP-1999-209484 Read from the PDF text (var/downloads/TP209484_2001.txt). Mean lunar radius section (k history, 1986 Oct 03 case, penumbral 0.2725076 and umbral 0.272281), lunar limb profile section (Watts datum ellipticity, centre of figure, 0.4 arcsec systematic errors, topocentric libration -3.1 to -4.6 deg, 0.364 arcsec/s), centre-of-figure shift +0.53/-0.13 arcsec, DE200/LE200 as the ephemeris, older -0.6 arcsec latitude convention.
- 10company Espenak, EclipseWise: Total Solar Eclipse of 2024 Apr 08, prime page Read. Predictions from JPL DE405, k (penumbra) 0.2725076 and k (umbra) 0.2722810, Delta T 71.5 s, lunar coordinates with respect to the centre of mass, UT1 = TD - Delta T.
- 11peer-reviewed Explanatory Supplement to the Astronomical Ephemeris and the American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac (HMSO, 1961) Section 6 (figure of the Earth: Hayford spheroid, the S and C functions) and Section 9B (eclipses: observer coordinates, Bessel's parametric-latitude device, rising and setting curves without refraction). Read from the archive.org OCR text kept in var/downloads/es1961_djvu.txt.
- 12primary Wright (2017), 2017 Eclipse Shadow Cones and Umbra Shape, NASA SVS 4517 Full HTML read from a saved copy. Terrain shifts the 2017 umbra south-east by as much as 3 km in the western states. Explains the polygonal umbra and the move from Watts to LRO and Kaguya profiles.
- 13primary Total Solar Eclipse of 2001 June 21, F. Espenak and J. Anderson, NASA/TP-1999-209484 Read from the PDF text kept in var/downloads/TP209484_2001.txt. States that predictions use centre-of-mass positions with no refraction or limb corrections, that local circumstances are at sea level unless the elevation is known, and defines the elevation factor tan(90-A) sin(D) for shifting the path limits.
- 14primary Fred Espenak, NASA GSFC, "The Lunar Limb Profile and Eclipse Predictions" Read. Watts corrections bring predictions to better than 0.5 s, uncorrected times can be off by 2 to 3 s and more near the path limits, Kaguya and LRO data reach about 0.2 s.
- 15trade Besselian Elements team, Experimentally Testing Eclipse Maps Accuracy (2024) Read via WebFetch summary. Stephenville, Texas, 2024 April 8. Observed totality 13.7 s (C2 18:39:06.6, C3 18:39:20.3 UTC) versus six predictions from 12.9 s (Irwin) to 65 s (timeanddate). Authors' own experiment, so trade grade.
- 16peer-reviewed Quaglia, L., Irwin, J., Emmanouilidis, K. and Pessi, A. (2021) Estimation of the eclipse solar radius by flash spectrum video analysis. ApJS 256, 36 Defines the eclipse solar radius, reports 959.95 ± 0.05 arcseconds from the 2017 flash spectrum at the southern limit, gives duration and limit-distance sensitivity to the radius and compares Occult, Solar Eclipse Maestro and Irwin's model. Full arXiv PDF read.
- 17peer-reviewed Wright, E. and Young, C. A. (2024) A raster-oriented method for creating eclipse maps. AJ 168, 163 Section 6.4 gives NASA's position: figures assume 696,000 km, nominal 695,700 km is unsuitable, eclipse values 959.99, 959.95, 959.98, 960.01 listed, Irwin's map shifted the northern limit several city blocks, 1 s of duration near a limit equals 0.03 arcseconds. Read from a saved copy of the IOP HTML (var/downloads/iop_ad6b23_wayback.html).
- 18primary Espenak, F., NASA GSFC, Mean Lunar Radius (reference page for the eclipse bulletins) Read. History of k: 1968-1980 NAO two values 0.2724880 and 0.272281, IAU 1982 k = 0.2725076, Espenak's use of 0.272281 for umbral contacts, 1986 Oct 03 misclassification.
- 19primary Espenak, Solar Eclipse Predictions, NASA GSFC eclipse site (2003) Full HTML read via curl. Statement of the older ephemeris basis and of k = 0.272281 instead of the IAU 0.2725076, and the responsibility statement.
- 20primary deltat.data: monthly determinations of TT - UT1 (USNO) Read on 2026-09-15. 2017 Aug 1: 68.8373 s; 2017 Sep 1: 68.8477 s; 2024 Apr 1: 69.1983 s; 2024 May 1: 69.2018 s; last row 2026 Apr 1: 69.1330 s.
- 21company Espenak, Circumstances calculator for the Total Solar Eclipse of 2024 Apr 08, EclipseWise Read via WebFetch summary. DE406, Delta T = 71.3 s, coordinates relative to the Moon's centre of mass. City rows are generated by the calculator and were not extracted.
- 22peer-reviewed Jones, Nichols-Fleming, Evans, Johnson, Andrews-Hanna (2025). Can the Moon's Center of Mass-Center of Figure Offset Be Explained With a Uniform Primordial Crust? Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets Abstract only, via the Semantic Scholar API. Quotes the 1.935 km lunar COM-COF offset as the constraint.
- 23primary USNO, 2024 April 8 Total Solar Eclipse, Astronomical Applications Department Read via WebFetch. IAU radii Sun 696,000 km and Moon 1737.4 km, no limb profile, no centre-of-figure correction, contacts found by iterating topocentric positions.
- 24peer-reviewed Morrison, L. V. and Appleby, G. M. (1981). Analysis of lunar occultations III. Systematic corrections to Watts' limb-profiles for the Moon. MNRAS 196, 1013-1020 Read in full from the ADS scan (OCR text). Source of the harmonic correction formula, the 1737.97 km datum radius, the +0.04 arcsec radius term, the -0.18 arcsec latitude shift, the -0.09 arcsec ellipticity, the +0.50 arcsec sin Q centre-of-figure term, and the 0.4 arcsec peak error.
- 25primary Espenak & Anderson (2001), Total Solar Eclipse of 2001 June 21, NASA TP-2001-209484 Local text read (var/downloads/TP209484_2001.txt). DE200/LE200, Watts corrections of 0.4 arcsec, graze-zone accuracy +/- 0.3 arcsec, advice to stay 1 km inside the interior limit, Elev Fact terrain factor, consumer GPS +/- 100 m, worked Lusaka limb-correction example.
- 26primary NASA SVS 4515: 2017 Total Solar Eclipse in the U.S., umbra animation with terrain and limb (E. Wright) Read from the Wayback Machine snapshot of 2026-01-14. Lists Earth radius 6378.137 km, Ellipsoid WGS84, Geoid EGM96, DE421, SPICE earth orientation kernel, Delta UTC 69.184 s and delta-T 68.917 s, DEM SRTM (SIR-C), lunar DEMs LOLA and SLDEM2015.
- 27peer-reviewed Wright, E. and Young, C. A. (2024). A Raster-oriented Method for Creating Eclipse Maps. The Astronomical Journal 168, 163 Read through the IOP HTML in several targeted passes (the PDF download returned a script page). Source of the DEM-to-limb-profile algorithm, the L = 18000 bin recommendation, the 0.01 deg libration refresh threshold, the totality test rho, the 49-sided umbra, the 696000 km solar radius, DE440 and the Moon ME frame, and the Herald 1983 history.
- 28trade Luca Quaglia, Konstantinos Emmanouilidis and John Irwin, "Timing of the internal contacts of the 2013 Nov 03 total solar eclipse by flash spectrum analysis" (Besselian Elements) Read. Observed C2 about 1 s later and C3 about 1 s earlier than predicted with 959.63 arcsec, duration about 2 s shorter; limb-profile sampling of 0.2 degrees can move a contact by 0.25 s; compatible radius 959.90 to 960.00 arcsec.
- 29primary The IAU Resolutions on Astronomical Reference Systems, Time Scales, and Earth Rotation Models, G. H. Kaplan, USNO Circular 179 (2005) Read from the PDF (var/downloads/circ179.txt). Equation 2.6 for TDB - TT (0.001657 s leading term), the statement that using TT for TDB errs by under 2 ms and under 1 mas for the Moon, the equation of the equinoxes with amplitude about 1 s, and the statement that the IAU 2000 resolutions change quantities only at the level of tens of milliarcseconds.
- 30primary IERS Bulletin A, Vol. XXXIX No. 037 (10 September 2026) Read. UT1-UTC = 0.000946 s on MJD 61287, TAI-UTC = 37 s since 2017 Jan 1, no leap second in December 2026, DUT1 = 0.0 s from 2026 Apr 9, polar motion x = 0.20025 arcsec and y = 0.33395 arcsec, prediction accuracies for UT1-UTC of 1.4, 2.4, 3.2 and 4.0 ms at 10, 20, 30 and 40 days.
- 31primary Folkner, Williams, Boggs, Park, Kuchynka (2014). The Planetary and Lunar Ephemerides DE430 and DE431. JPL IPN Progress Report 42-196 Read in full from the PDF (var/downloads/folkner2014_de430.txt). Frame ICRF2, TDB definition and integrated TT-TDB, lunar core-mantle damping and the 1550-2650 span, Euler angle definitions, LLR data table, mass table (Sun/Jupiter 1047.348625, Sun/Saturn 3497.901768), au = 149597870.700 km.
- 32peer-reviewed Park, Folkner, Williams, Boggs (2021). The JPL Planetary and Lunar Ephemerides DE440 and DE441. Astronomical Journal 161, 105 Open-access HTML read through the fetch tool's extraction, not the PDF. Spans, geodetic precession on librations, LLR to 2020 March, 20 cm early and 1.3 cm recent rms, ICRF3, libration angles stored in the files, DE440 for modern data and DE441 for historical.
- 33primary Williams, Boggs, Folkner (2008). DE421 Lunar Orbit, Physical Librations, and Surface Coordinates. JPL IOM 335-JW,DB,WF-20080314-001 Read from the PDF. DE421 vs DE403 differences (6 m in 2008 to 16 m in 2020, 3 to 9 mas), DE421 PA to ME rotation Rx(-0.30") Ry(-78.56") Rz(-67.92"), 1" = 8.4 m on the surface.
- 34primary Espenak, Meeus (2009). Five Millennium Catalog of Solar Eclipses: -1999 to +3000. NASA/TP-2009-214174 Read from the PDF text (var/downloads/TP2009-214174.txt). Sections 1.3 (VSOP87D, ELP-2000/82 with 37,862 terms, truncation at 0.0005 arcsec, 1/40 s), 1.4 (secular acceleration -25.858 arcsec/cy2 and the Delta T correction c), 1.5 (k = 0.2724880 penumbral, 0.272281 umbral, IAU 0.2725076 history) and the centre-of-figure paragraph (+0.50 arcsec longitude, -0.25 arcsec latitude, ignored).
- 35primary Espenak, Historical Values of Delta T, NASA GSFC eclipse site (2012) Full HTML read via curl. Table comparing Stephenson & Houlden 1986 with Stephenson 1997 values, differences up to 1294 s at AD 300.
- 36primary Espenak F., Meeus J. (2006) Five Millennium Canon of Solar Eclipses: -1999 to +3000, NASA/TP-2006-214141 Read in full as PDF text (2,625 lines). Sections 1.3 to 1.6 give ephemerides, secular acceleration, k values and the map-accuracy statement with the reference-gore example for -1996 Oct 04. Note the Text10 link on the NASA publication page returns 404, Text11 is the live file.
- 37trade Dunham (2024), April 8th Total Solar Eclipse, the Ultimate Lunar Occultation, IOTA page updated 2024 May 6 Full HTML read from a saved copy (var/downloads/iota.jhuapl.edu_TSE20240408.htm.html). Solon, Maine site 3 km north of the predicted southern limit, 43 s of totality, beads over a minute each side. Compares Jubier's and Irwin's limits and recommends umbral depth of at least 2.0 km. States IOTA's revised view that its earlier solar-radius variations were observational error.