Solar eclipse of May 9, 1948

This eclipse is a member of a semester series. An eclipse in a semester series of solar eclipses repeats approximately every 177 days and 4 hours (a semester) at alternating nodes of the Moon's orbit.[1]

Solar eclipse series sets from 1946–1949

Ascending node			Descending node
117	May 30, 1946 Partial		122	November 23, 1946 Partial
127	May 20, 1947 Total		132	November 12, 1947 Annular
137	May 9, 1948 Annular		142	November 1, 1948 Total
147	April 28, 1949 Partial		152	October 21, 1949 Partial

It is a part of Saros cycle 137, repeating every 18 years, 11 days, containing 70 events. The series started with partial solar eclipse on May 25, 1389. It contains total eclipses from August 20, 1533 through December 6, 1695, first set of hybrid eclipses from December 17, 1713 through February 11, 1804, first set of annular eclipses from February 21, 1822 through March 25, 1876, second set of hybrid eclipses from April 6, 1894 through April 28, 1930, and second set of annular eclipses from May 9, 1948 through April 13, 2507. The series ends at member 70 as a partial eclipse on June 28, 2633. The longest duration of totality was 2 minutes, 55 seconds on September 10, 1569. Solar Saros 137 has 55 umbral eclipses from August 20, 1533 through April 13, 2507 (973.62 years). That's almost 1 millennium!

Series members 30–40 occur between 1901 and 2100:
30	31	32
April 17, 1912	April 28, 1930	May 9, 1948
33	34	35
May 20, 1966	May 30, 1984	June 10, 2002
36	37	38
June 21, 2020	July 2, 2038	July 12, 2056
39	40
July 24, 2074	August 3, 2092

This eclipse is a part of the long period inex cycle, repeating at alternating nodes, every 358 synodic months (≈ 10,571.95 days, or 29 years minus 20 days). Their appearance and longitude are irregular due to a lack of synchronization with the anomalistic month (period of perigee). However, groupings of 3 inex cycles (≈ 87 years minus 2 months) comes close (≈ 1,151.02 anomalistic months), so eclipses are similar in these groupings.

Inex series members between 1901 and 2100:
May 29, 1919 (Saros 136)	May 9, 1948 (Saros 137)	April 18, 1977 (Saros 138)
March 29, 2006 (Saros 139)	March 9, 2035 (Saros 140)	February 17, 2064 (Saros 141)
January 27, 2093 (Saros 142)

This eclipse is a part of a tritos cycle, repeating at alternating nodes every 135 synodic months (≈ 3986.63 days, or 11 years minus 1 month). Their appearance and longitude are irregular due to a lack of synchronization with the anomalistic month (period of perigee), but groupings of 3 tritos cycles (≈ 33 years minus 3 months) come close (≈ 434.044 anomalistic months), so eclipses are similar in these groupings.

Series members between 1901 and 2100
September 9, 1904 (Saros 133)	August 10, 1915 (Saros 134)	July 9, 1926 (Saros 135)
June 8, 1937 (Saros 136)	May 9, 1948 (Saros 137)	April 8, 1959 (Saros 138)
March 7, 1970 (Saros 139)	February 4, 1981 (Saros 140)	January 4, 1992 (Saros 141)
December 4, 2002 (Saros 142)	November 3, 2013 (Saros 143)	October 2, 2024 (Saros 144)
September 2, 2035 (Saros 145)	August 2, 2046 (Saros 146)	July 1, 2057 (Saros 147)
May 31, 2068 (Saros 148)	May 1, 2079 (Saros 149)	March 31, 2090 (Saros 150)

The metonic series repeats eclipses every 19 years (6939.69 days), lasting about 5 cycles. Eclipses occur in nearly the same calendar date. In addition, the octon subseries repeats 1/5 of that or every 3.8 years (1387.94 days).

21 eclipse events between July 21, 1906 and July 20, 1982
July 20–21	May 9	February 24–25	December 13–14	October 1–2
105	107	109	111	113
			December 13, 1898
115	117	119	121	123
July 21, 1906	May 9, 1910	February 25, 1914	December 14, 1917	October 1, 1921
125	127	129	131	133
July 20, 1925	May 9, 1929	February 24, 1933	December 13, 1936	October 1, 1940
135	137	139	141	143
July 20, 1944	May 9, 1948	February 25, 1952	December 14, 1955	October 2, 1959
145	147	149	151	153
July 20, 1963	May 9, 1967	February 25, 1971	December 13, 1974	October 2, 1978
155
July 20, 1982