Annular Solar Eclipse of 2005 October 03

"On Monday, October 03, an annular1 eclipse of the Sun will be visible from within a narrow corridor which traverses the Iberian Peninsula and stretches across the African continent. A partial eclipse will be seen within the much broader path of the Moon's penumbral shadow, which includes Europe, western Asia, the Middle East, India and most of Africa."

See: http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/SEmo...05/ASE2005.html and http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/SEmo...SE2005map3b.GIF

I live near Madrid (Spain) and won't miss this event.
If I'm able to take some photos of the eclipse I'll post them here.

What's the weather like in Spain at this time of year? Is there a pretty good chance that you won't get clouded out?

It really depends on which part of Spain you are interested.
Northern Spain may be usually cloudy but in the eclipse case we are talking about Central Spain and here we don't expect any clouds.

OT: Well, it's not fully correct because we are expecting clouds (rain) since before summer. Spain is currently suffering a very dry season, lots of fires during summer and water level on the rivers and dams going down and down.

Cool! Can't wait to see pics

I remember seeing an annular eclipse that went through the central US on May 10, 1994. Very neat experience even if it wasn't total.

Picture I took of the partial eclips, as seen here in Belgium.

A LOT more than can be seen in the UK...just cloud.

Obvious really - there is a DIRECT correlation between astronommical events and cloud cover in the UK

Doug

Agree Totally!

Missed THE eclipse, Missed THE Meteor shower and dozens of other spectacular events through the years. Console myself with Iridium flares and ISS passes these days, as they happen often enough to see once in a while.

Also light pollution has killed off astronomy within 10 miles of any conurbation or motorway - Thinking of selling my telescope!

Humph!

The eclipse is nearing its end here in Madrid (Spain).

I'm currently at work and many of us gathered outdoors to see it; it was a nice experience, specially those four minutes between second and third contact (the actual annular eclipse).

It was around 11:00 local time (09:00 local solar time) but the luminosity was similar to dawn and it was getting cold.

I was planning to take some photos and even bring here my 6" refractor telescope, but my yesterday "dry-run" was so disapointing that I finally gave up. It took too much time to find and track the sun through the scope without the help of the finder and I didn't want to lose the main part of the eclipse adjusting all the hardware.

Edited: Absolutely no clouds here.

Back in 99 (august 11), i was in the north of France which was completely covered with clouds (even some showers) until 10 minutes before totality. I had my C8 installed and had to cover it half the morning because it was pooring down for hours.

10 minutes before, as twilight set in, everything broke open. We experienced the totality without any clouds visible. We (my friends and i) changed from cold, wet, depressed, completely exhausted because of lying in a tent all night without sleeping.....to the most happy people on earth. After an hour.....cloud cover set in again.

I am sure there was a DIRECT correlation down there as well.....but it was a reverse effect from what you experience in England.

I don't know which effect it was......but it couldn't be coincidence.

Any comments/experience on dissoving cloud cover during totality ?

I am almost sure

"Any comments/experience on dissoving cloud cover during totality ?"

If the clouds are being created by convection, then they will tend to dissipate as the heat from the sun is blocked.

Unfortunately (and it seems commonly in the UK) this had no effect.

I think Terra caught it out over Africa

http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/realtim...6100501.4km.jpg

Yeah. It's miserable when you get clouded out on something like this.

When I was a kid, around 1980 or so, I read in an astronomy book that an annular eclipse would take place in my home region (just outside Niagara Falls, Canada) in 1994. I wouldn't say that I looked forward to it every day until the event, but it was the sort of thing that would come to mind four or five times a year.

1994 came around. I was in grad school at Brock University. The morning of the eclipse was completely clear, and I was looking forward to watching it from St. Catharines when a thunderstorm blew up. Of course the thunderstorm cloud covered up the Sun just as the central part of the eclipse began. So I jumped into my car and tried to drive out from under the cloud by heading south... and ended up getting stuck in a traffic jam in Welland.

I finally managed to get out from under the cloud cover about twenty miles from my starting point, missing the end of annularity by a few minutes.

Crappo.

As an encore performance, I also managed to miss the really good Leonid meteor showers three years in a row. However, it wasn't all wasted, as I now have a much better understanding of what stratus clouds look like at four in the morning.

I managed to grab a webcam photo from Aberdeen, Scotland at 10:00

IMAGE
IMAGE2

i was quite pleased since i hadn`t set anything up, and was just a quick snap.

For everyone, who missed the eclipse:
http://www.PhotoServer.us/is.php?i=82003&i...rEclipse.gi.gif (1.1 mb animated gif)
The partial solar eclipse as seen from Sofia, Bulgaria. 41 frames, each is 1/2000 sec, f/7.4, ISO 200 with HP Photosmart 945 and Baader AstroSolar filter.
The morning was cloudy, during the eclipse the weather was fine, and again the sky is full of clouds, so here we were lucky :-)

As seen from Meteosat 7

Small and fast ( 0.7 meg )
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/doug_im...clipse_smal.gif

Large and slower ( 2 meg )
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/doug_im...nim_eclipse.gif

Those are Vis images, but the effect is visible in IR images, a slight bright patch moving across as well - showing the cooling effects of the eclipse.

Doug

And several MODIS images stitched, from both Aqua
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/doug_im...qua_eclipse.jpg

and Terra
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/doug_im...rra_eclipse.jpg


Doug

A friend of mine gave me this photos, taken by himself in Madrid, and his permission to post them here.

Click to view attachment

Taken with a simple digital camera between first and second contact. The moon's aparent movement was from up to down.

Click to view attachment

Annular eclipse as seen through his catadioptric telescope.

Click to view attachment

Eclipse after third contact. See the moon's crater rims.

Neat!

One of the most impressive images I've seen of a solar eclipse (and many of you have probably seen it as well) was taken from Mir on August 11, 1999, as posted on APOD

The first (and only) annular eclipse I've experienced was on 30 May 1984. I got on the centerline in a pasture in central Alabama. I took a lot of photos (8" reflector, stopped down with a mylar solar filter, 35mm camera with motor drive), but I didn't increase the exposure enough to account for limb-darkening and the photos of the central phase turned out grossly underexposed. Barely printable on photo paper, I going to scan the negatives with a slide scanner, then stack and enhance the images.

Anyway, during the last few minutes before the maximum eclipse, it gort dark and still, streetlights came on and cows went into the barn. Just like they say. At the instant of maximum eclipse, I got the impression that there was something VERY big overhead. I reflexively looked up and saw the deep red chromosphere arc race from the east to the west side. Even though I glanced up for only a second, that moment will be frozen in time forever.

Great photos here.

--Bill

The famous August, 1970 issue of National Geographic Magazine has an article about the total solar eclipse of March 7, 1970, which included a satellite image of the eclipse shadow on Earth. Was this the first one recorded? I could not find the image online.

This is the first eclipse I ever remember, though I did not actually see it (my parents did not want me to damage my vision). But I do recall they were covering it live on television and the sky did get darker outside, even though I was only in a partial area. I would not see an actual solar eclipse until the annular one of 1994. That was unreal, and I can only imagine what seeing an actual total one is like, which I hope to in person someday. The next one in the USA is 2017, as I recall.

Regarding other eclipses from space, the Apollo 12 crew saw Earth eclipse the Sun in 1969, and Surveyor 7 saw the first lunar eclipse from the lunar surface in 1968.

I know that the crew of Gemini 12 was supposed to observe a solar eclipse from orbit in November, 1966. My memory of the acytual event is fuzzy -- I *think* they were supposed to try to fly through the Moon's shadow and observe the eclipsed Sun from orbit, but this was abandoned when their Agena's Primary Propulsion System (PPS) showed signs of instability during orbital insertion and the crew was forbidden from using it. They needed that big engine to get into the right orbit to pass through the Moon's shadow.

However, I *think* they were able to observe and photograph the Moon's shadow on the face of the Earth.

It is possible that I have this wrong, that they were supposed to try to photograph the shadow upon the Earth but that the loss of the PPS meant that they weren't in the right place to do so. I just can't recall for certain which of these two scenarios was the one that played out.

-the other Doug

From the NSSDC database:

"During insertion of the GATV into orbit an anomaly was noted in the primary propulsion system, so the plan to use the GATV to lift the docked spacecraft into a higher orbit was abandoned.

"Instead, two phasing maneuvers using the GATV secondary propulsion system were accomplished to allow the spacecraft to rendezvous with the November 12 total eclipse over South America at about 9:20 a.m. EST with the crew taking pictures through the spacecraft windows."

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/database/Master...og?sc=1966-104A

More details here:

http://www.astronautix.com/flights/gemini12.htm

Although the pilots missed the ride to high altitude, Lunney soon found something for them to do with their spare time. The flight plan had originally called for them to photograph a solar eclipse, if it did not conflict with the rest of the mission. This task fell by the wayside when the two-day launch delay - from 9 to 11 November - meant that the eclipse would occur during their high-altitude excursion. Canceling the main engine burn inspired two of the mission planners to thoughts of reinstating the eclipse photography. Schneider and Lunney conferred with James R. Bates, Experiments Advisory Officer for Gemini XII, on the effect this might have on the rest of the experiments. Since the flight plan had to be changed anyway, Bates said, why not include the eclipse?

This conference with Bates marked a significant change in mission control operations. Formerly working out of an adjacent staff support room, the experimenters' representative was now allowed by the engineers in charge to operate as a part of the flight control team in the main control room. Although there had been an experiments console in the control room by Gemini X, it had been only occasionally manned. Bates, on Gemini XII, was the first full-time experiments officer. This experience worked out so well that the custom was continued in Apollo.

Even after the eclipse became a flight-plan casualty, planners continued to plot its path. Now there was a chance to work this experiment back into the mission. The Agena's secondary propulsion system had enough power to get the spacecraft into position for an eight-second photographic pass at the proper time. Schneider and Lunney agreed that this piece of realtime planning would give an added fillip to the mission.

"The eclipse got to us after all," Lovell remarked. "Yes, it looks like it," Conrad answered. Although the crew had wanted to do the experiment when it was first planned, these sudden preparations came at an inconvenient time. They were still working with the Agena and were scheduled to begin such activities as eating, sleeping, and working on other experiments.

An actual image of the Gemini 12 eclipse is here:

http://www.apolloexplorer.co.uk/photo/html/gt12/10074596.htm

And here's another photo of the eclipse from Gemini 12 in partial phase.

http://www.apolloexplorer.co.uk/photo/html/gt12/10074595.htm

Thanks! I knew most of the story; thanks for filling in the gaps!

-the other Doug