A total solar eclipse occurs when the Moon's apparent diameter is larger than the Sun's, blocking all direct sunlight, turning day into darkness.

Totality occurs in a narrow path across Earth's surface, with the partial solar eclipse visible over a surrounding region thousands of kilometres wide.

Occurring about 20 hours after perigee (on June 28, 1927, at 10:40 UTC), the Moon's apparent diameter was larger.

[2] The path of totality crossed far northern Europe and Asia, including the United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Soviet Union (today's Russia) on June 29 (Wednesday), and finally passed Amukta in Alaska on June 28 (Tuesday).

The Astronomer Royal set up a camp to observe the eclipse from the grounds of Giggleswick School in North Yorkshire, which was on the line of totality.

[3][4] An observer at Southport, where an estimated quarter of a million people were on the shore to watch, described the eclipse for the Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, describing it as "those memorable 23 seconds ... a landmark forever in the lives of those privileged to see for the first time the Sun's Corona, whose secrets are only revealed to us for some few minutes in each century.

[6] Frances Brody's 2017 novel Death in the Stars is set at Giggleswick School while crowds were there to view the eclipse.

Their appearance and longitude are irregular due to a lack of synchronization with the anomalistic month (period of perigee).