Solar eclipse of 29th March 2006.

I'm watching it from TV and the Internet. It's a total eclipse on the southeasternmost Greek island (Kastellorizo).
 
It stayed clear and it was pretty spectacular. Well worth being here for. My only gripe is that (in my view) pointless security constraints prevented me bringing my camera (despite a specific appeal) , so I tried to borrow the rig one, which is a piece of junk. The batteries expired just as the main event was starting, so I just kicked back and enjoyed the show.
The NASA Eclipse site predicted that we would have almost two minutes of totality. By my watch it was only 1 min 12 seconds- and even then the corona was bright enough that I would have called it annular, rather than total. It certainly got pretty dark, but not dark enough to find Mars, Sirius or Procyon, all of which were in visible positions.
Rigs are noisy places. The often reported "hush" was not apparent.
We do have a lot of bird life around here and it was noticeable none of them was flying from about five minutes before totality. It was eleven minutes after the sun 's first reappearance that I saw a solitary crow on the wing.

Right. Next total is August 2008. Greenland. Start packing now.
 
Soapy Sam said:
Bump.
It's Wednesday March 29th, It's an hour to go and it's 90% sunny with scattered cloud...
69Dodge- sorry I missed your query. I don't know technical details. It's a company network with a satellite link to (I think) Netherlands Telecom. (The original set up here was under the control of Shell.)
If you ask Darat, I suspect he could confirm the ISP for you. I note on the world map there's no dot in the northern Caspian, but there are some in Holland.

I'm off outside to assume my vigil. I hope sphenisc is getting good weather in Turkey.
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It was great thanks. Lots of fun and merriment at first contact, then things quietened down about five minutes before totality, as the light dimmed and it rapidly got cooler. I saw the pattern of crescents under the trees, which was quite appropriate being in Turkey, and then it all went dark. The corona became visible quite dramatically and a few prominences were visible. I missed the full glory of the diamond ring appearing - looked away at the wrong moment, but the gradual re-emergence was quite impressive in its own way, and strangely reassuring.

I posted a photo in the 'VB Image Host' bit, there's a hint of a prominence just to the left of 12 o'clock.

cheers
 
Odd, when an eclipse is over (and admittedly, with no realistic way to travel to any place in the world where there's totality I've only ever seen partial ones in my lifetime) I tend to be disappointed. Then again, when I think of world ending catastrophies, I kinda get excited at the promise of adventure it would seem to bring.
 
Dark Jaguar said:
Odd, when an eclipse is over (and admittedly, with no realistic way to travel to any place in the world where there's totality I've only ever seen partial ones in my lifetime) I tend to be disappointed. Then again, when I think of world ending catastrophies, I kinda get excited at the promise of adventure it would seem to bring.
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There's a total in the States in 11 years time. Anywhere near you?

http://www.eclipse.org.uk/eclipse/0412017/
 
I didn't notice this thread before I left, but I was in the middle of Turkey for the eclipse (Capadocia, in a small town called Urgup, staying in a small hotel carved into the side of a hill). It was incredible. I tried to take some photos, but most of them didn't come out at all. I didn't have a tripod, and with the low light conditions, I couldn't hold my camera still enough most of the time. Here's one decent landscape shot I did manage during totality, though:
 

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Now that I've explored the website kindly provided by sphenisc (a UK one, no less!), I'm royally pissed off at my clueless idiocy seven years ago.

I'm from London, as you can see. Back in August 99 there was a total solar eclipse. It was 97% partial in London. A quick drive down to the coast, and I'd have seen a total solar eclipse. I don't travel much. I'm not in a position to jet off to the middle of the atlantic, or antarctica or wherever. The next southern england total will be in 2090.

August 99 was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. So where was I? On the annual family holiday to Mallorca! :mad: :mad: :mad:

To be fair, we did get about 60% partial there, but... dagnabbit!

Anyway, August 2008, I'm going out to Novosibirsk, even if I have to WALK.
 
The eclipse was very very nice from the cruise ship in the Mediteranean. A bit of hazy scuz, but the corona was nice and bright.

I am a long time luker on this board. This thread finally got me to register, just so I could say I saw the eclipse!

If you ever get half a chance, try to see a total eclipse in person. Partials are not even close to the real thing!

Slow Lurker
 
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