We determine the observing sites for eclipses of large magnitude recorded in ancient Chinese chronicles from 200 BCE to 900 CE, by adopting the difference between terrestrial time and universal time, ΔT, given by Morrison & Stephenson (2004). The records of solar eclipses with large magnitude are divided into four groups in accordance with the historical variations of the capital cities of ancient Chinese dynasties. We determine areas in which all the eclipses in each group, with an eclipse magnitude larger than a certain threshold value, could be observed. We find that these areas coincide with the historical capitals, which agrees with the general idea that the solar eclipses were observed at the capital of each dynasty. This result also veries the ΔT values during the period from 100 BCE to 400 CE, during which historical records of eclipses are so rare that the ΔT values can only be obtained by interpolating the long-term data. Moreover, we show that the eclipses described by the term Ji in East-Asian history are not all total eclipses; their mean magnitude is 0:96 ± 0:04. We find that complementary expressions, such as dark daytime and appearance of stars during the eclipse, strengthen the possibility that eclipses described by the term Ji were total. We also provide quantitative definitions for expressions such as `being not complete and like a hook', `being almost complete', `visibility of stars during the eclipse', and `darkness during an eclipse.' The literal meanings of these expressions are in agreement with the recent physical modeling of sky brightness during total eclipses provided by K¨onnen & Hinz (2008).

We examine whether the solar eclipse effect is dependent on the geographic conditions under which the geomagnetic field variations are recorded. We concentrate our attention on the dependence of the solar eclipse effect on a number of factors, including, the magnitude of a solar eclipse (defined as the fraction of the angular diameter of the Sun being eclipsed), the magnetic latitude of the observatory, the duration of the observed solar eclipse at the given geomagnetic observatory, and the location of the geomagnetic observatory in the path of the Moon’s shadow. We analyze an average of the 207 geomagnetic field variation data sets observed by 100 INTERMAGNET geomagnetic nodes, during the period from 1991 to 2016. As a result, it is demonstrated that (1) the solar eclipse effect on the geomagnetic field, i.e., an increase in the Y component and decreases in the X, Z and F componenets, becomes more distinct as the magnitude of solar eclipse increases, (2) the solar eclipse effect is most conspicuous when the modulus of the magnetic latitude is between 30◦ and 50◦, (3) the more slowly Moon’s shadow passes the geomagnetic observatory, the more clear the solar eclipse effect, (4) the geomagnetic observatory located in the latter half of the path of Moon’s shadow with respect to the position of the greatest eclipse is likely to observe a more clear signal. Finally, we conclude by stressing the importance of our findings.

It has been considered that 'exhausted eclipses' (日食旣) were total eclipses. However, modern precise calculations show that a significant fraction of such records are not realized to be total. Thus we doubt that the two concepts are equivalent. Here we investigate the meaning of 'exhausted eclipses' in the east-Asian history. We first find that eclipses of magnitude greater than 0.8 were regarded as 'exhausted eclipses' by a Korean astronomer of the 18th-century Choson dynasty. His notion was based upon the definition of 'exhausted eclipses' in the ephemerides of pre-modern Chinese dynasties. According to those ephemerides, the 'exhausted eclipses', whose magnitude is greater than 0.8, have the first contact at the western part of the solar disk and the fourth contact at the eastern part of the solar disk. A simple geometrical calculation shows that such cases really occur when the magnitude of eclipse is greater than 0.7. We pointed out that such an ancient definition might not be impractical for ancient astronomers, because the uncertainty of eclipse magnitude estimated by ancient Chinese ephemerides was 10% and the human sight has a spatial resolution of 1.2 arcmin, which is approximately one twentieth of the Sun's angular diameter.

The Chinese ancient accounts of timing observations of 48 lunar eclipses and the secular variation of the Earth's spin speed are discussed. A series of ΔT expressing the secular deceleration of the Earth's rotation was obtained. The average increase rate of length of the day is about 1.5 milliseconds per century.