Solar eclipse of March 31, 2071

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]

120	April 21, 2069 Partial	125	October 15, 2069 Partial
130	April 11, 2070 Total	135	October 4, 2070 Annular
140	March 31, 2071 Annular	145	September 23, 2071 Total
150	March 19, 2072 Partial	155	September 12, 2072 Total

It is a part of Saros cycle 140, repeating every 18 years, 11 days, containing 71 events. The series started with partial solar eclipse on April 16, 1512. It contains total eclipses from July 21, 1656 through November 9, 1836, hybrid eclipses from November 20, 1854 through December 23, 1908, and annular eclipses from January 3, 1927 through December 7, 2485. The series ends at member 71 as a partial eclipse on June 1, 2774. The longest duration of totality was 4 minutes, 10 seconds on August 12, 1692.

Series members 23–53 occur between 1901 and 2450:
23	24	25
Dec 23, 1908	Jan 3, 1927	Jan 14, 1945
26	27	28
Jan 25, 1963	Feb 4, 1981	Feb 16, 1999
29	30	31
Feb 26, 2017	Mar 9, 2035	Mar 20, 2053
32	33	34
Mar 31, 2071	Apr 10, 2089	Apr 23, 2107
35	36	37
May 3, 2125	May 14, 2143	May 25, 2161
38	39	40
Jun 5, 2179	Jun 15, 2197	Jun 28, 2215
41	42	43
Jul 8, 2233	Jul 19, 2251	Jul 29, 2269
44	45	46
Aug 10, 2287	Aug 21, 2305	Sep 1, 2323
47	48	49
Sep 12, 2341	Sep 23, 2359	Oct 3, 2377
50	51	52
Oct 14, 2395	Oct 25, 2413	Nov 5, 2431
53
Nov 15, 2449

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:
July 9, 1926 (Saros 135)	June 20, 1955 (Saros 136)	May 30, 1984 (Saros 137)
May 10, 2013 (Saros 138)	April 20, 2042 (Saros 139)	March 31, 2071 (Saros 140)
March 10, 2100 (Saros 141)

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 June 12, 2029 and June 12, 2105
June 11–12	March 30–31	January 16	November 4–5	August 23–24
118	120	122	124	126
June 12, 2029	March 30, 2033	January 16, 2037	November 4, 2040	August 23, 2044
128	130	132	134	136
June 11, 2048	March 30, 2052	January 16, 2056	November 5, 2059	August 24, 2063
138	140	142	144	146
June 11, 2067	March 31, 2071	January 16, 2075	November 4, 2078	August 24, 2082
148	150	152	154
June 11, 2086	March 31, 2090	January 16, 2094	November 4, 2097