Zzzzzzzzzz
Well, fuckaduck. It was completely clouded over here for the lunar eclipse two weeks ago, and now I'm on the wrong side of the world for a solar one.
The universe is clearly out to make me miserable.
I have only one memory of watching a solar eclipse outside, with the 'big box with a pinhole in one end and a piece of paper glued on the inside of the other end' rig, when I was a child. Now I'm beginning to wonder how many there have been that I would have been able to see anyway.
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
^ I got it worse. Not only was it cloudy for the lunar, but it snowed and was freezing cold. Still is freezing cold.
Zzzzzzzzzz
It was both of those for me, too. But I could have bundled up if the sky had been clear enough to see it. I've got plenty of warm clothes.
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
It's cloudy here, so I can't see the eclipse. This sucks.
"We have done the impossible and that makes us mighty." - Malcolm Reynolds
Shame about the clouds... but on the other hand, this
picture is amazing. The moon and the International Space Station in front of the sun at the same time!
Tomorrow, there will be a partial solar eclipse visible in 'much of Europe, North Africa and central Asia'. Quoting NASA
:
The penumbral shadow first touches Earth's surface in northern Algeria at 06:40:11 UT. As the shadow travels east, Western Europe will be treated to a partial eclipse at sunrise. The eclipse magnitude [1
] from European cities like Madrid (0.576), Paris (0.732), London (0.747), and Copenhagen (0.826) will give early morning risers an excellent opportunity to photograph the sunrise eclipse with interesting foreground scenery.
Greatest eclipse [2
] occurs at 08:50:35 UT in northern Sweden where the eclipse in the horizon will have a magnitude of 0.858. At that time, the axis of the Moon's shadow will pass a mere 510 km above Earth's surface. Most of northern Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia also lie in the penumbra's path. The citizens of Cairo (0.551), Jerusalem (0.574), Istanbul (0.713), and Tehran (0.507) all witness a large magnitude partial eclipse.
A sunset eclipse will be visible from central Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and northwest China. The partial eclipse ends when the penumbra leaves Earth at 11:00:54 UT.
Local circumstances and eclipse times for a number of cities in the penumbral path are listed in Table 1
. All times are in Universal Time. The Sun's altitude and azimuth, the eclipse magnitude and eclipse obscuration [3
] are all given at the instant of maximum eclipse. When the eclipse is in progress at sunrise or sunset, this information is indicated by a '-'.
The NASA Java Script Solar Eclipse Explorer is an interactive web page that can quickly calculate the local circumstances of the eclipse from any geographic location not included in Table 1
:
eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/JSEX/JSEX-index.html
Unfortunately, it looks like it will be cloudly in this part of England and I may therefore miss the eclipse. Hopefully, though, somebody will be able to see it. Remember eclipse safety
, don't ruin your eyesight by looking directly at the sun!
Standard or polaroid sunglasses are not solar filters. They may afford some eye relief if you are outside on a bright day, but you would never think of using them to stare at the Sun. So you cannot use sunglasses, even crossed polaroids, to stare at the Sun during the partial phases of an eclipse. They provide little or no eye protection for this purpose.