Partial Solar Eclipse Friday

Pankaj Arora writes "To those in the South Pacific (USA) and certain parts of the Americas, Friday, April 8th marks the day of the first solar eclipse of 2005. From the article: "It will be a partial eclipse rather than a total one, in which the Earth is cast into darkness. But it will be the last partial solar eclipse visible from the continental United States until May 20, 2012." Also, see other related stories."

Comments

end is near?

[St. Arbirix]

I think it's worth mentioning that 2012 is also the year the gods decide whether or not humanity should live another 13 394-year cycles (5122 years). That's at least according to the Maya and Aztec.

Re:end is near?

[Andy Mitchell]

Our scientists, who can predeict when an eclipse will occur, also reckon the end of the world is about 5 billion years away. At this point the nuclear fusion process in the sun will run out of "steam" and the stars core will contract while the outer layers expand to engulf the inner planets (including the earth).

Re:How come...

[Captain Splendid]

Finally! I had to get it from the Fresno Bee!

"The maximum eclipse visible from the continental United States will be in Miami, where nearly half of the sun's diameter will be covered at 6:20 p.m. EDT."

Hybrid and Partial

[antares256]

Just to be clear...

http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/SEmono/HSE20 05/HSE2005.html

This is also a Hybrid solar eclipse, the path of which runs through Panama. It starts out Annular over the ocean, goes to total over the ocean, and resumes annular through Panama. So parts of the Americas will also see an annular eclipse.

This is a relatively rare event, the next of which will occurr on Nov. 3, 2013.

There are several groups webcasting this event from Panama.

Not Total?

[CodeMonkey4Hire]

From the article:

It will be a partial eclipse rather than a total one, in which the Earth is cast into darkness.

followed later by:

For a while, the sun will be blotted out completely as the eclipse moves across the open Pacific, but it will be visible only to people at sea.

Sounds like a total eclipse to me. Do some people call it partial just because it can't be seen as total on land?

Total Eclipses.

[Fyz]

Don't hold your breath for the next total eclipse. It won't happen in the US until 2017.

However, if you're willing to travel, there will be one in March 2006. Come visit sunny Libya, meet the Colonel, and try to counter the angry natives who want to waste your American ass by threatening to "use your magic western technology to blot out the sun".

Seriously, though, watching a total eclipse is something that will mark a defining point in your life as an astronomy geek. I pilgrimaged to Paris in 1999 to see the eclipse back then(I live in Denmark, so it wasn't that big a trip). I had to sit in a train that was crammed with people Indian style to get to the totality zone, and when it finally occurred, the one single goddamn cloud on an otherwise clear sky obstructed my view of the halo.

So I guess I'll go for Libya. Or maybe Turkey.

Fuzzy Memories

[Psiolent]

I remember as a kid watching a partial eclipse and being rather disappointed in it. We made those stupid pin-hole viewers that cast the crescent shaped shadows. I was thoroughly unimpressed.

Then someone noticed that their straw hat was creating the same effect with every single hole in it. That was pretty cool. Finally I started looking around the ground and saw that every ray of light that was filtering through the canopy (we were in a wooded area) was shaped like a crescent. That was really cool. Now I actually look forware to these partial eclipses.

The article forgot something

[B.D.Mills]

Yes, it is an annular/total solar eclipse. The article states:

It will be a partial eclipse rather than a total one

However, the article forgets to add that the eclipse is a partial eclipse as seen from the continental United States.

It annoys me when people do this. Whether it's Americans forgetting the existence of the rest of the world, or northern hemisphere residents being blind to the existence of the southern hemisphere, it's really annoying. It's even worse when such a cavalier parochial attitude leads to factual errors.

As to the eclipse itself, it is an unusual type of eclipse known as an annular/total eclipse. The vertex of the moon's shadow will actually intersect the surface of the earth during the eclipse. Thus, people at both ends will see a narrow annular eclipse, and people in the middle will see a short-duration total eclipse. Even though the majority of the eclipse path is over the Pacific ocean, die-hard eclipse-chasers will have rented ships to observe the eclipse because of its unusual nature.

The most interesting points on the eclipse path is where the nature of the eclipse is intermediate between annular and total. When the apparent size of the Sun is larger than the bottoms of the lunar valleys, but smaller than the mountaintops of the moon, you get a broken annular eclipse of just a few seconds' duration.

Map of the eclipse path

[pyramis]

Here is a hi-res map of the eclipse path: http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/eclipse/map105.p df

Blogging from the South Pacific

[pyramis]

Fortunately for a few lucky adventurers, this happens to be the season when sailboats cross the South Pacific from Mexico to French Polynesia (they call it the Puddle Jump). My mom's boat happens to be among them, traveling on her retirement adventure.

I created a blog for their sailboat. Since they have email access via single sideband radio, they can blog from the boat! Plus there's a GPS tracker built into the site so you can see the current position. Pretty neat.

http://wind-river.blogspot.com