The first solar eclipse of 2009 occurs on January 26th 2009. This eclipse is termed as annular eclipse as it forms a ring shape. The annular eclipse will be visible from a wide track that traverses the Indian Ocean and western Indonesia. A partial eclipse will be seen within the much larger path of the Moon’s shadow, which includes the southern third of Africa, Madagascar, Australia except Tasmania, southeast India, Southeast Asia and Indonesia.
This is the 50th eclipse of Saros 131. The Saros cycle is an eclipse cycle with a period of about 18 years 11 days 8 hours (approximately 6585⅓ days) that can be used to predict eclipses of the Sun and Moon. The first annular eclipse of Saros 131 occurred on 1720 Aug 04. This eclipse will be visible from Bangalore, Calcutta and Chennai in India and many other Southeast Asian countries and will last for almost 1.30 hours.
Apart from this, there would be 4 lunar eclipses and a total solar eclipse in 2009 and the details are given in the table below.
| Eclipse Name | Date of visibility |
| Lunar Eclipse | Feb 09 2009 |
| Lunar Eclipse | July 07 2009 |
| total Solar Eclipse | July 22 2009 |
| Lunar Eclipse | August 06 2009 |
| Partial Lunar Eclipse | December 31 2009 |
Source : NASA