Eclipse Oracle Validation Ledger

1. Record status

• Original audit date: 2026-05-04
• Evidence correction: 2026-07-17
• Correctness and evidence update: 2026-07-17
• Besselian admission update: 2026-07-17
• Polar central-path admission update: 2026-07-17
• Partial-visibility footprint admission update: 2026-07-18
• Target subsystems: moira.eclipse, moira.eclipse_besselian, moira.eclipse_geometry, moira.eclipse_canon, solar path and partial-visibility footprint geometry, and the eclipse-facing portion of moira.occultations
• Purpose: Record exactly what the repository proves about eclipse geometry, catalog comparison, and numerical stability.

This correction supersedes the earlier blanket claim of "absolute physical and mathematical sovereignty." That language exceeded the executable evidence. The native model remains Moira's DE441-backed physical model in TT; compatibility and external-reference checks are evidence about specified products, not substitutes for native doctrine.

2. Evidence classes and current coverage

A. Native geometric invariants

tests/unit/test_shadow_oracle.py exercises internal geometric invariants:

• penumbral radius exceeds umbral radius for the sampled geometry;
• cone radii respond monotonically to the sampled lunar distances;
• lunar magnitude increases as the shadow-axis offset decreases;
• grazing and anti-solar limiting cases behave consistently;
• runtime Besselian x/y projection reproduces the native shadow-axis distance;
• the east/north orientation, field ranges, cone ordering, and total/annular l2 signs are explicit;
• the cone slopes and plane radii satisfy exact common-tangent geometry;
• the runtime Besselian vessel is immutable; and
• opposite-phase geometry fails instead of extending the solar shadow ray backwards through Earth.

These are physical and geometric invariant checks against the first-class runtime surface. Dedicated primary-authority per-field evidence is recorded in section 2E.

tests/unit/test_eclipse_numerical_edges.py, tests/unit/test_eclipse_contact_solver.py, and tests/unit/test_eclipse_helpers.py add numerical covenants for stable tiny and antipodal separations, off-grid mean-limb tangencies, phase intervals shorter than the coarse scan, truncated contact windows, exact-pole canonicalization, pole crossing, and solar greatest-location refinement above 89.5 degrees. These are invariant and adversarial tests. External polar-path accuracy is established only for the named 2015 product in section 2C.1.

tests/unit/test_eclipse_footprint.py adds vessel and topology invariants for the first-class partial-visibility product: immutable points and tracks, contact ordering and pairing, named boundary-component and time-monotone segment identity, closure of each penumbral component through exactly two horizon incidences and any paired fold endpoints, both admitted topology labels, and the public sample_count bounds. Every admitted penumbral kind is the single component_id=0, with contiguous segment_id values across any fold. DE441 integration regressions cover the 1991 folded limit graph and a 1992 sub-minute polar reversal at requested output counts 9, 99, 181, 257, and 721. These checks prove internal contracts and topology, not external coordinate accuracy.

B. NASA Five Millennium catalog comparison

tests/fixtures/eclipse_nasa_reference.json identifies its sources as the NASA Five Millennium solar and lunar catalogs. The executable coverage is in tests/integration/test_eclipse_nasa_reference.py:

• classification is checked at selected NASA catalog maxima across ancient, modern, and future epochs;
• representative searched events are compared on a common TT scale while each product retains its declared Delta-T basis; and
• the ancient 360-second and post-2150 60-second limits are explicitly cross-authority regression envelopes, not uncertainty or accuracy claims.

This slice validates catalog classification and bounded greatest-event timing. It does not perform the runtime Besselian comparison; that dedicated per-field evidence is recorded in section 2E. Solar path-product evidence is recorded separately below.

C. Named NASA solar path products

tests/integration/test_eclipse_path_nasa_reference.py compares Moira's public solar-path vessel with four named NASA/GSFC products stored with source URLs in tests/fixtures/eclipse_nasa_reference.json:

• 1999-08-11 total;
• 2000-02-05 partial;
• 2031-11-14 hybrid; and
• 2032-05-09 annular.

For each row, the executable comparison covers searched greatest-event timing, global eclipse type, greatest latitude and longitude, and magnitude. The three central rows additionally compare central-path width and central duration at the solved greatest site. The native solar search uses one Earth-reception light-time Sun/Moon shadow-axis policy; the NASA products retain their own stated model and Delta-T basis. The named tolerances are cross-model regression envelopes, not claims of identical models or atlas-wide parity. The partial row validates the existing one-point greatest-eclipse product, partial disk-overlap invariant, and a separately named 0.6-degree horizon-longitude envelope. NASA's displayed 0.0 km and 00m00s are recorded as non-applicable display sentinels, not physical central-path measurements; Moira's shape-stable zero fields are checked separately as public-vessel invariants. No central line is invented for a non-central eclipse.

This four-row slice does not itself validate a partial-eclipse footprint, observer-elevation sensitivity, every sampled central-line point, full-track ingress/egress geography, or exact solar grazing/tangent boundaries. The separate polar and partial-footprint products below do not widen those four rows implicitly.

C.1 Authoritative polar central-path product

tests/fixtures/nasa_solar_polar_path_reference.json binds the official NASA/GSFC 2015-03-20 total-eclipse WGS 84 path table to its paired Besselian page under one declared lineage: JPL DE405, Delta T = 67.6 s, the published k1/k2 constants, and center-of-mass mean-limb geometry without lunar topography. tests/integration/test_eclipse_polar_path_nasa_reference.py compares Moira's independent DE441 result with that product.

The executable authority slice covers searched greatest time (1 s), greatest and five named central-axis positions (3 km), both axis/ellipsoid tangency endpoints (3 km), greatest path width (3 km), local central durations (3 s), greatest magnitude (0.005), and cone clearance at each available published north/south limit (3 km). The fixture preserves NASA's missing north limit at 10:16 and 10:18 as null; the engine test proves those epochs are not a closed two-limit width product and must fail explicitly rather than publish an incomplete cone-arc span.

This closes the named authoritative polar-central fixture gap. It does not establish full-atlas path parity, per-row width parity away from greatest, observer-elevation behavior, lunar-topography timing, or the separate one-limit/terminator-closure central-shadow width product.

C.2 NASA partial-visibility footprint anchors

tests/fixtures/nasa_solar_penumbral_footprint_reference.json binds two NASA/GSFC Table 2 products with their declared model metadata and source URLs:

• 2003-11-23, the published one-limit connected case; and
• 2006-03-29, the published two-limit/two-loop case.

Both products are the penumbral visibility footprints of total solar eclipses. They exercise both footprint topologies, but they are not an external footprint oracle for an event whose global class is partial.

The NASA products use DE200/LE200, their published k1 = 0.2725076 lunar-radius convention, TDT, and true east-positive WGS 84 coordinates. Moira independently uses a content-identified DE441/LE441 reader, Earth-reception exact common-tangent shadow geometry, and its physical spherical mean-limb radii on zero-elevation WGS 84.

tests/integration/test_eclipse_footprint_nasa_reference.py compares P1/P4 and, where present, P2/P3 plus the named north/south Table 2 boundary anchors. Time is compared on a common TT scale and coordinates are matched to the nearest lawful named boundary point. The pinned acceptance ceilings are 5 s and 40 km. They are honest cross-model regression bounds for the declared DE200/LE200-plus-k1 versus DE441 physical-mean-limb difference, not uncertainty estimates and not observational error bars.

The same integration slice enforces event classification, contact ordering, the presence or absence of P2/P3, expected limit families, WGS 84 coordinate bounds, and one_limit_connected versus two_limit_two_loop topology. NASA's maps establish the published topology, but NASA does not provide a dense numerical coordinate table for the complete penumbral tracks. No dense-track, full-atlas, refraction, elevation, magnitude-contour, or local-apparent- circumstance parity is claimed. A globally partial event's greatest footprint point is admitted by separate physical/geometric invariants, not by these NASA anchor rows.

D. Named NASA lunar contact products

tests/integration/test_eclipse_lunar_contacts_nasa_reference.py compares the native mean-limb contact solver with four named rows from NASA's 2001-2100 lunar catalog and their paired detailed NASA/GSFC eclipse figures:

• 2023-05-05 penumbral;
• 2024-09-18 partial;
• 2025-03-14 total; and
• 2027-07-18 limiting penumbral.

The century-catalog fields are greatest-event timing and the applicable P1-P4, U1-U4, and U2-U3 phase durations. NASA publishes durations rounded to 0.1 minute under VSOP87/ELP2000-82, Danjon enlargement, and catalog Delta-T; Moira retains DE441 and its native clock policy. All four greatest-event comparisons use a 120-second cross-model timing envelope. The ordinary rows use a 1.0-minute cross-model duration envelope. The 0.0014-magnitude 2027 limiting case uses a separately declared 5.0-minute duration envelope: it proves that the short penumbral pair remains resolved, not close timing parity at a model-sensitive limit.

The dedicated tests/fixtures/nasa_lunar_contact_instants_reference.json fixture records all 14 applicable individual P1, U1, U2, U3, U4, and P4 instants from the paired NASA/GSFC figures, together with each source URL, SHA-256 digest, published UT text, adopted Delta T, and printed VSOP87/ELP2000-85 plus CdT (Danjon) lineage. This figure lineage is not collapsed into the century-duration lineage. Source TT is the published UT plus the figure's Delta T. Native UT1 contacts are transformed through the content-identified DE441 clock; NASA-compatibility contacts are compared in their stored TT coordinate.

The first individual-contact comparison isolated an omitted apparent reduction as the dominant NASA-compatibility defect. The repaired default method, nasa_shadow_axis_apparent_sun_moon, evaluates both bodies from one reception Earth state, applies reception light-time and then annual aberration to each, and excludes gravitational deflection, topocentric parallax, and atmospheric refraction. The legacy geometric and retarded methods remain explicit comparison policies. Executable evidence also binds the apparent geocentric Sun and Moon right ascensions and declinations at the 2025 figure's printed greatest-eclipse TT. The remaining bounded difference includes DE441/LE441 versus VSOP87/ELP2000-85, constants, and source-algorithm differences; it is not the former omitted-reduction defect relabeled as ephemeris drift.

The ordinary per-instant ceilings are 120 s for native DE441 and 10 s for the NASA-compatibility path. The limiting 2027 endpoints use separate 240 s native and 30 s compatibility robustness ceilings while retaining the independent P4-P1 duration gate. NASA-compatible greatest eclipse is bounded at 10 s. The ten-row modern catalog comparison separately bounds greatest timing at 10 s and signed gamma at 2e-4 Earth radii. The ceilings are cross-model regression envelopes, not one-second accuracy, uncertainties, UTC timestamps, or exact-model parity. Greatest eclipse is a separate event instant, not a seventh contact. Mean-limb contacts remain distinct from topography-conditioned graze or Baily's Beads products.

E. NASA/GSFC solar Besselian per-field comparison

tests/fixtures/nasa_solar_besselian_reference.json records provenance-bearing NASA/GSFC Besselian rows for representative partial, total, hybrid, and annular solar eclipses. tests/integration/test_eclipse_besselian_nasa_reference.py evaluates EclipseCalculator.solar_besselian_elements(jd_ut1) at five TT epochs per event and compares every published runtime field: x, y, d, mu, l1, l2, tan_f1, and tan_f2.

The named cross-model residual envelopes are:

• x, y, l1, and l2: 1.0e-4 Earth equatorial radii;
• d: 0.003 degrees;
• circular mu: 0.007 degrees; and
• tan_f1 and tan_f2: 3.0e-6, dimensionless.

This is primary-authority per-field cross-model validation, not exact model parity and not an uncertainty budget. NASA's rows use VSOP87/ELP2000-82 and their published k1/k2 lunar-radius conventions. Moira retains DE441, Earth-reception light-time Sun/Moon center-of-mass geometry, no stellar aberration, and its physical mean-limb radii. The comparison therefore measures the bounded residual between two declared models rather than tuning the native model to the catalog.

F. Swiss cross-engine corroboration

tests/integration/test_eclipse_external_reference.py uses the cached tests/fixtures/swe_t.exp corpus for classification and searched-maximum corroboration. tests/integration/test_eclipse_occultation_where_reference.py checks one cached Swiss solar where row at a one-degree latitude/longitude envelope.

Swiss is a secondary comparator. These checks do not establish primary-authority Besselian parity, and the one-row where check does not validate atlas-grade track shape, path width, magnitude, or central duration.

3. Corrected findings

A. NASA Besselian evidence is bounded cross-model validation

The previous ledger claimed numerical parity for l1, l2, and the cone angles for the 2017-08-21 and 2024-04-08 eclipses. It cited tests/integration/test_eclipse_besselian_audit.py; that file does not exist in the repository. Those unsupported residual, constant-basis, and sign-transform claims remain withdrawn from the validation record.

The replacement evidence is the explicitly named surface, fixture, sample, semantics, units, and per-field envelopes in section 2E. It validates the DE441-native result against NASA/GSFC as a primary external authority under declared model differences. It does not restore a claim of exact NASA model parity, atlas-wide coverage, or field uncertainty.

B. Small-angle precision is now covered by executable remediation

The earlier audit correctly withdrew an unsupported small-angle claim. The current runtime uses a stable vector separation, and direct unit tests now cover coincident, antipodal, longitude-offset, latitude-offset, and sub-microdegree cases. This is numerical invariant evidence for the exercised inputs; it is not a general external angular-position oracle.

C. Five-epoch samples do not prove general temporal continuity

The invariant suite proves the bounded properties listed in section 2A. It now has companion runtime evidence at five TT epochs for each of four named events. Those discrete samples bound the published fields at the exercised epochs; they do not by themselves prove smooth shadow-axis motion between the samples, absence of solver jitter over arbitrary intervals, or continuity across DE441 coverage boundaries.

4. Bounded 2026-07 remediation

The July repair now implements and exercises:

• small-angle separation stability;
• eclipse-contact root deduplication, search-window containment, positive-step validation, off-grid tangent admission, and sub-step phase recovery through an explicit signed-clearance pair solver;
• penumbral eclipse identity and kind="any" admission;
• signed NASA-compatible gamma and compatibility-model separation;
• explicit UT1-to-UTC reporting boundaries;
• local solar-eclipse overlap admission, including observer elevation;
• truthful central-duration semantics;
• deterministic, pole-safe observer-location search behavior on the closed geographic surface;
• DE441 shadow-axis/WGS 84 central-line and closed-footprint width geometry, including polar tangency endpoints, fail-closed spherical/WGS 84 centrality divergence, and explicit rejection of incomplete one-limit footprint spans;
• legal-latitude stellar-graze bracketing and directed north/south occultation band boundaries;
• named NASA partial-path, lunar phase-duration, and individual-contact comparisons;
• the first-class instantaneous SolarBesselianElements vessel and EclipseCalculator.solar_besselian_elements(jd_ut1) engine method;
• NASA/GSFC per-field Besselian comparisons for partial, total, hybrid, and annular events at five TT epochs each, plus the paired 2015 polar event;
• the first-class SolarEclipseVisibilityFootprint product, its exact common-tangent mean-limb penumbral contacts, named penumbral and geometric horizon boundary components, and explicit one-limit/two-limit topology; and
• NASA/GSFC Table 2 anchor comparisons for the 2003 and 2006 partial-visibility products under pinned 5 s and 40 km cross-model ceilings. Both authority products are total-eclipse penumbral footprints.

The footprint admission adds Moira.solar_eclipse_footprint(...) and POST /v1/eclipses/solar/footprint. Existing eclipse event and SolarEclipsePath vessels, EclipseCalculator.solar_eclipse_path(...), POST /v1/eclipses/solar/path, and the native C++ substrate remain unchanged. That compatibility fact is not astronomical proof.

5. Current validation statement

The supportable statement is:

Moira's eclipse subsystem has native geometric-invariant coverage, selected NASA catalog classification and TT search-regression coverage, four named NASA solar path-product comparisons spanning partial, total, hybrid, and annular events, one named NASA polar central-path comparison, four named NASA lunar phase-duration and individual-contact comparisons, and bounded cached-Swiss cross-engine corroboration. The instantaneous DE441-native Besselian surface has primary-authority per-field cross-model evidence for four representative event classes plus the paired 2015 polar event at five TT epochs each. The first-class partial-visibility footprint has NASA/GSFC Table 2 contact and boundary-anchor evidence for one named one-limit total eclipse and one named two-limit total eclipse, plus independent topology and penumbral-component closure invariants. A globally partial event's greatest point is backed by invariants rather than externally anchored by those rows. Exact NASA model parity, dense-track parity, full-atlas path validation, per-row polar width parity, and observationally conditioned footprint parity are not claimed.

6. Remaining evidence work

• Extend Besselian evidence beyond the four named rows and five TT epochs before making broader temporal or coverage claims. The current residual envelopes are cross-model regression bounds, not exact parity or uncertainties.
• Extend path-product evidence to observer elevation, dense externally published partial-visibility tracks, ingress/egress geography beyond the named anchors, solar grazing/tangent cases, magnitude contours, and local apparent circumstances. The first-class mean-limb footprint is admitted, but NASA's sparse Table 2 anchors do not establish dense-track parity.
• Extend individual lunar-contact evidence beyond the four named modern figure products before making broader temporal or coverage claims. The admitted slice now bounds all applicable contacts for one ordinary penumbral, partial, and total event plus one separately classified limiting event.
• Keep model-sensitive limiting classifications visible. A local diagnostic found a classification difference at the 2015-04-04 near-limit event, but that observation is not yet a fixture-backed covenant. Do not force catalog type agreement unless an internal geometry defect is independently demonstrated.
• Keep mean-limb geometry distinct from lunar-profile-conditioned Baily's Bead or graze products; no bound limb-topography dataset is established here.