Primordial Ooze: Total Solar Eclipse: Movie

Tomorrow, there will be a total solar eclipse. Various blogs report on it but here is a richly detailed description of the event:

On Wednesday, 29th March 2006, the shadow of the Moon will sweep a band starting from Brazil, through Atlantic Ocean, Gold Coast of Africa, Saharan Desert, Mediterranean Sea, Turkey, Black Sea, Georgia, Russian Federation, northern shores of Caspian Sea, Kazakhstan; ending in Mongolia. The duration of totality will be less than 2 minutes near the sunrise and sunset limits, but will be as long as 4 minutes and 7 seconds in Libya, at the moment of greatest eclipse. The path of totality will be 180 kilometers wide at that moment.

NASA has an amazingly detailed graphic:

I simulated the eclipse, as experienced by an observer at these coordinates, using Starry Night astronomy software:

35 17.0N  029 20.2E
At precisely 10:52 Universal Time.

Notice the Iridium 31 satellite that passes by? I wonder if observers will notice that? I wasn’t completely happy with the simulation, by the way. The moon never passes over the sun. Instead, there is some kind of instantaneous shutter effect instead. Watch it and let me know what you think.

A guy from our local astronomy club, just last week, decided to book a flight to Turkey and head off to the totality. His wife was like, “Just go!” as he hemmed and hawed about the opportunity. He wrote an e-mail today saying he had arrived in Turkey and was with many other eclipse enthusiasts. I hope the weather holds out for them.

Clear skies.

Technorati tags: eclipse, astronomy, science