Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Total Solar Eclipse on 22 July 2009

First of all would like to apologize for my infrequent updating of the blog; I will try my best to keep up with it. Anyway, apparently the blogger interface is down so I'm using another one to post this : /

The solar eclipse of July 22, 2009 was the longest total solar eclipse of the 21st century, lasting as much as 6 minutes and 39 seconds in some places.

This article pretty much covers what happened around the world over:

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/07/22/solar.eclipse/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

The view observed in Singapore would be a partial one, with a maximum obscuration of 3.63% (which would be around 4% as mentioned in the media). The first link is an animation of the eclipse of Singapore, the second shows the maximum obscuration. (thanks to vangoh from singastro!)

http://www.eclipse.org.uk/eclipse/0412009/Singapore_Singapore_2009Jul21_anim.gif
http://www.eclipse.org.uk/eclipse/0412009/Singapore_Singapore_2009Jul21.png

Unfortunately, the heavens did not favour us and there was an island-wide downpour during the eclipse period (around 8-10am), thus making it impossible to observe the partial eclipse. If I'm not wrong there was a TASOS expedition to China to observe the eclipse (21 July Straits Times prime pg 6), hopefully they had better luck, as well as those who went to China for the eclipse had the good grace of weather too.

I would love to post some pictures that rlow took of the eclipse in Hangzhou, however I'm unable to do so because the blogger interface is down. Finally, a link to provide some food for thought. It makes me so envious of those who have experienced totality! T_T

http://www.mreclipse.com/Totality/TotalityCh01.html

-Kenneth