Posted on 01/15/2010 1:25:22 PM PST by TaraP
Millions of people were plunged into darkness today as the longest solar eclipse for 1,000 years turned the Sun into a blazing ring of fire. Such a spectacle will not be seen again until December 23rd, 3043. Unlike eclipses which block out the Sun entirely this one was annular meaning the Moon blocked most of the Sun's middle, but not its edges, causing it to look like a circular band of light. Astronomers said the Maldives island of Male was the best place to view the phenomenon, although the unusual ring effect was also seen in a narrow stretch spanning Central Africa, southern India, northern Sri Lanka and parts of Myanmar and China.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
THAILAND???
“I flew my Lear Jet to Nova Scotia,
but there was no total eclipse of the sun.
I’m so lame, I probably think this song is about me.”
Sorry Carly, I just had to do it.
All that you touch
All that you see
All that you taste
All you feel
All that you love
All that you hate
All you distrust
All you save
All that you give
All that you deal
All that you buy
Beg, borrow or steal
All you create
All you destroy
All that you do
All that you say
All that you eat
Everyone you meet
All that you slight
Everyone you fight
All that is now
All that is gone
All that’s to come
And everything under the sun is in tune
But the sun is eclipsed by the moon.
There is no dark side of the moon really.
Matter of fact it’s all dark..
If it had been visible here in central Texas, it wouldn’t have been.
I once fell into a burning ring of fire. I went down down down and the flames went higher. And it burned burned burned, that ring of fire, that ring of fire.
I’m in a 70’s rock kind of a mood today. I was humming “I’m Mandy Fly Me” by 10 cc this morning.
Your advice is spot on.
I did view a partial (about 95%) in Boston in the early ‘70’s by looking at it through 4 stacked lens from welding goggles I had - and even then I was a bit worried that I might have fried my eyeballs (although I was in my 20’s at the time, and thus pretty certain of my invincibility).
I'll probably still have a garage full of Y3K supplies at that point.
Wow, it would’ve been a great day to be in China. Just WOW!
The only one I’ve seen was in Goldendale, Washington on February 26, 1979 (it was right on the centerline of the path of totality). I had to chase the holes in the clouds to get a good view of it, but I finally did, and was in a farmer’s field, in the countryside around Goldendale, with about six or seven other people there (in that one field, anyway... :-) ...).
Portland was totally overcast and I knew ahead of time that it wasn’t going to work there, so I headed out for Eastern Washington. But, in Portland, I did hear that it got real dark and all the street lights came on (in the middle of the day) when the sun went total.
Bet that was the one I saw when I was at Ft Bragg,right
at lunch time,we were out in the field,totally awesome.
It got dark for a few minutes.only total I ever saw
I had that once. It hurt to sit down.
“Longest” eclipse? Uh... what? how can one eclipse last longer than any of them? It’s not like the moon slows down sometimes...
Totally awesome - thanks for the link. The cloud problem in the NW is obvious in the report as well.
Nice to see real newsman on the networks also - Reynolds was fine, but I really miss David Brinkley. Don’t watch any of the current pukes on the nets, and haven’t for decades.
My primary memory of the eclipse I saw was how eerie the atmosphere got as we neared totality - not only the darkness, but also the stillness (the birds even seemed to quiet down), as well as the way the temperature cooled down a bit and the wind picked up a tad.
Useless factoid - “my” eclipse was the one Carly Simon referred to in her song about Warren Beatty (”You’re So Vain”): it was partial in New England, but total in parts of Nova Scotia.
“Longest” eclipse? Uh... what? how can one eclipse last longer than any of them? It’s not like the moon slows down sometimes...
Well, first of all, you have to distinguish between an "annular eclipse" and a "total eclipse". And the range of differences in annular eclipses is going to be broader than in total eclipses.
There are varying factors in both, the distance of the moon from the earth at the time for one thing. It's a complex mechanism that is going on and it varies all the time.
So, the length of total eclipses and annular eclipses vary all over the place and yes, there are longer ones and shorter ones... :-)
A view of the encroaching umbra from near Winnipeg, Manitoba during the '79 eclipse:
If you are in a fairly open place and can see for a long ways, you're also supposed to see the oncoming shadow from the totality part of the eclipse coming (on the ground). I was in Goldendale, Washington at the time and I was looking for it and I thought I saw it coming across the landscape, but it comes very very fast, so you have to be looking really intently for it.
I was watching for it just before Bailey's Beads...
The 1979 total eclipse was the last one in North America until 2017. Who knows..., I may get to see that one, too... :-)
I was in the part of the country where I could see the 1979 total eclipse and now I'm in the part of the country where I can see the 2017 total eclipse, too...
Perhaps, I'll "go out with a bang" with that one... LOL...
BUT, then again, the Mayan Calendar doesn't have any dates after 2012, so maybe none of us will get to see that total eclipse in 2017.... :-)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.