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Pics of the Longest Solar Eclipse of the Century
Vinod writes "Yesterday thousands of people around Asia witnessed the longest solar eclipse of the century. Although it was not clearly visible in some parts due to overcast weather, thousands of people gathered to view this spectacular event. Yesterday's solar eclipse lasted for 6 to 7 minutes, making it the longest solar eclipse of the century. Here is a collection of 33 beautiful images of the solar eclipse from around the world."
I thought eclipses were supposed to cause super powers ... or was it that they took them away? *shakes fist*
RFC2119
these pics look much bigger nicer over at boston.com's The Big Picture, where they were posted yesterday and no doubt scooped and scaled for your link.
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/07/the_longest_solar_eclipse_of_t.html
---- You are fully entitled to my opinion.
the dude with four pairs of glasses looking at the solar eclipse. Is that even safe? I understand most sunglasses don't even block the dangerous rays and make it even worse to look toward the sun as your eyes are more dilated and the harmful rays burn your eyes even more.
Comments?
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
When they say the longest eclipse of the century, they mean 2001-2100.
Queue jokes about solar eclipse sunglasses made in china ...
in 3... 2... 1...
But here in Beijing, all I could see was a think cloud of haze. I couldn't even find the bloody sun. So I went back inside and went to sleep.
I'm guessing that the guy with 3 pairs of sunglasses over his regular glasses must have been a slashdotter. Where else would you find such ingenuity (and such nerdiness)?
Whoever you are, I salute you, my friend.
But then I realized the cable was blue, so I only gave it one star. I hate blue.
When the average solar eclipse is much smaller than 6 minutes.
Many of the pics show people wearing what look like disposable glasses to view the eclipse; I thought looking at the sun at any time was a Really Bad Idea (tm) and during an eclipse was supposedly an Even Worse Really Bad Idea.
I guess they now make thin films that are so dark as to be safe to look at the sun now?
Ok we don't need to make this personal (although I've got to admit that seeing the word 'dicklicker' did make me laugh), but yes, you are correct. We can figure out with a great deal of precision the relative position of the Earth, Sun, and Moon many centuries in advance, so this will indeed be the longest solar eclipse that the Earth will see this century.
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Even tho it's early in the century, it might well be the longest eclipse of the century. I imagine that the calculations to predict eclipses and their duration would be relatively straightforward by modern standards. You probably wouldn't even need to take relativity into account.
"Welcome to our world. We are the wasted youth. And we are the future too." Yes, I know these are stupid lyrics.
I'm going to shoot lots of rockets at the moon to alter it's orbit to one that makes an even longer one.
They failed to take into account the meteor that will strike Earth in 2027, knocking it into a different orbit, and therefore changing the timing and characteristics of future eclipses. VH1 is really going to regret running that "I Love the Solar Eclipses of the 2000s" show so early.
Where else would you find such ingenuity (and such nerdiness)?
Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea according to boston.com.
I remember a partial eclipse here in the states, apparently people were staring at the sun through CDs, which were ineffective. There were warnings on the news to that effect.
The guy taking the picture through exposed X ray films... without knowing anything about those specific films, I'd guess that they wouldn't be doing anything to block UV rays. Does anyone know if they actually do?
We salute you, Mr. Uses-three-pairs-of-sunglasses-to-look-at-the-solar-eclipse guy!
Oh, and it's spelt "TEH ASIA".
How about "6m39s"? Some people forget that we have freaking good models and instruments nowadays. Even if you don't know that, it should be intuitive that we wouldn't be able to determine which one is the longest of the century with only minute-level precision.
Eclipses might not happen at all in that case. Remember that the distances of the Sun and Moon from Earth are *just* right for the Moon to exactly cover the Sun during an eclipse.
"..."
Ah sorry, neither TFA nor the summary (which is just the text from TFA) indicated any talk of the future. Usually when media say things including time frames, it's done as 'to date'. The fact that a media outlet might actually look into the future or report actually correct information strikes me as more uncommon then eclipses ;]
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TFS doesn't make it very clear. It should have stated it a few more times.
When "The Media" hypes science stories they always proclaim this kind of shit. What they don't say, for instance, is how much longer is this eclipse than the second longest one.
Maybe one millisecond, who knows.
Actually, that's an interesting point. What's the typical length of a solar eclipse?
I'd actually expect most total eclipses to last about the same length... the moon covers the sun, the moon's speed doesn't vary all that much. Well, I guess the earth's speed does vary on its elliptical orbit (angular velocity varies, while the area swept is constant, something like that... I'm not sure what the correct terminology was), so since the earth's speed varies, the length of an eclipse might be longer or shorter depending on whether the earth was closer to the perigee or apogee of its orbit.
Also, what's with the invisible rectangle obscuring the lower-right corner of the text entry on here? I can see what I'm typing, but I can't use the mouse to control the cursor in that region. It changes to the normal pointer instead of the text-select I-beam.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
I've had that "invisible rectangle" since coming onto FF3.5. I suspect some obscure bug in the slashcode.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
All of these are taken from Flickr and without sticking (c) notice.. Heck !!
After reading about this the other day I was trying to find some nice pictures of the lunar shadow on the earth. Have there been any pics of it from high up? I found one or two blurry shots from a plane, but nothing that really looked inspiring.
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The goggles! They do nothing!
A morning without coffee is like something without something else.
Some things are obvious early on. For example, the movie "Battlefield Earth" was released in May of 2000, and critics quickly concluded that it was not too early to declare it the worst movie of the century.
That "whooshing" sound you hear overhead is not the sound of another solar eclipse.
Simple logic implies this would not work. If the moon were closer, it would need to orbit the earth faster to keep from descending into the planet.
If it were going faster, it wouldn't be in line for an eclipse as long as it is now. If the moon were farther away from the earth, it could orbit slower which would make the eclipse last longer, but might not be a full eclipse.
I'm no astrophysicist, but it seems to me the only easy way to make a solar eclipse last longer would be for the moon to get bigger. So instead of shooting rockets to make move the moon, let's pile up all the lawyers and politicians on the moon. That should make for at least a 10 minute eclipse.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
mmmm... Using Chrome, that corner lets me resize the text entry box.
Off-topic, I know.... just trying to help.
No, more like I can't mod shit on this thread for some unknown, cosmic reason (I was going to fix what you cite)...
/. why is this still an issue after these many years? :P
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For example, the movie "Battlefield Earth" was released in May of 2000, and critics quickly concluded that it was not too early to declare it the worst movie of the century.
Well, 2000 was the last year of the 20th Century of the Current Era.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Even tho it's early in the century, it might well be the longest eclipse of the century. I imagine that the calculations to predict eclipses and their duration would be relatively straightforward by modern standards. You probably wouldn't even need to take relativity into account.
They're posted here:
http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse.html
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Not that one. Fx 3.5 highlights a bug in the slashcode. What you are seeing in Chrome is added to every textarea automatically by Chrome itself, not a bug in the slashcode.
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And this is how you view a solar eclipse: http://news.wenxuecity.com/messages/200907/news-gb2312-891058.html
No. Actually, the longest of the century: http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEsaros/SEsaros136.html
Armaments, 2-9-21 And Saint Attila raised the hand grenade up on high, saying, 'O Lord, bless this Thy hand grenade' N
maybe the Earth did, but I didn't. :(
Isn't it amazingly COOL how the best pictures of the eclipse are those which include people and their living?
Science isn't everything. Coincidence of congruent angles isn't as cool as people living under an eclipse.
We are ALL lucky to live on this planet. How many other planets have eclipses like these?
Ohh....
¿ Qué ?
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
... by sufficently primitive people. It's quite amazing to see, but also quite freaky at the same time. I can imagine people who didn't understand the concept of planets and moons and the sun and how they all fit together to find this sort of thing as indicative of some greater event. I suppose you'd also have to have quite a self-centered view of the universe to believe that way, but I guess that's part and parcel with not understanding what is going on; if you don't get it, assume it's all about you.
Here's a collection of the pictures I took of the eclipse: http://owh.net/?YEYnRRguJY
It's my first time photographing an eclipse so the pictures aren't "Professional Quality" but they're not awful either.
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Even tho it's early in the century, it might well be the longest eclipse of the century. I imagine that the calculations to predict eclipses and their duration would be relatively straightforward by modern standards. You probably wouldn't even need to take relativity into account.
They're not. You don't need GR, but you do need a lot of calculus and geometry. I've done an Astronomy masters by coursework and we didn't even attempt to cover this.
Good approximations however were worked out by the earliest civilizations...Read about the Saros cycle here:
http://www.ulo.ucl.ac.uk/public/eclipse/ecl_calc.html
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I saw the eclipse from Delhi. 83% totality.
However it was cloudy till 6:30am. 6:26 was the max phase.
From 6:30 to 6:45 clouds relented, and I could actually take a few pics.
Here you go!
http://tanveer.smugmug.com/gallery/8996323_Jy27n
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
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Perhaps but they were talking about the 21st century ;)