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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."
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.
Direct away from face when opening.
"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."
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Just to be clear...
0 05/HSE2005.html
http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/SEmono/HSE2
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.
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.
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.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
Here is a hi-res map of the eclipse path: http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/eclipse/map105.p df