By inspection of central eclipses videorecords, data of Baily beads timings are retrievable. Knowing the lunar limb profile at the moment of the eclipse we evaluate the excess or defect of solar limb when the Sun is assumed at its standard radius. Two procedures of data analysis are here presented: one based on limb heights and the other on times. While these methods are based upon Occult 4 software, they can be used with other ephemerides and new lunar profiles. The example of 2006 total eclipse data, with its remarkably negative value of ΔR= -0.41"± 0.04", is presented.

Solar diameter measurements have been made nearly continuously through different techniques for more than three centuries. They were obtained mainly with ground-based instruments except for some recent estimates deduced from space observations. One of the main problems in such space data analysis is that, up to now, it has been difficult to obtain an absolute value owing to the absence of an internally calibrated system. Eclipse observations provide a unique opportunity to give an absolute angular scale to the measurements, leading to an absolute value of the solar diameter. However, the problem is complicated by the Moon limb, which presents asphericity because of the mountains. We present a determination of the solar diameter derived from the total solar eclipse observation in Turkey and Egypt on 29 March 2006. We found that the solar radius carried back to 1 AU was 959.22± 0.04 arcsec at the time of the observations. The inspection of the compiled 19 modern eclipses data, with solar activity, shows that the radius changes are nonhomologous, an ef-A. Kilcik ( ) 238 A. Kilcik et al. fect that may explain the discrepancies found in ground-based measurements and implies the role of the shallow subsurface layers (leptocline) of the Sun.