| |
EI2GYB > ASTRO 02.05.23 21:00l 58 Lines 5360 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 13766_EI2GYB
Read: GUEST
Subj: Totality "Down Under"
Path: IW8PGT<LU4ECL<LU9DCE<VA3TOK<VE3CGR<N5MDT<EI2GYB
Sent: 230502/1843Z 13766@EI2GYB.DGL.IRL.EURO LinBPQ6.0.23
#####
_ _ _ _ #### _\_
/ \ ___| |_ _ __ ___ | \ | | _____ _____ ##=-[.].]
/ _ \ / __| __| '__/ _ \ | \| |/ _ \ \ /\ / / __| #( _\
/ ___ \\__ \ |_| | | (_) | | |\ | __/\ V V /\__ \ # \__|
/_/ \_\___/\__|_| \___/ |_| \_|\___| \_/\_/ |___/ \___/
Sent Via QO-100 Sat! .630 .' `.
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Totality "Down Under"
By: J. Kelly Beatty April 27, 2023
When the Moon's shadow swept across Earth on April 20th, tens of thousands traveled to Australia, Timor-Leste, and Indonesia to witness the celestial spectacle.
More often than not, eclipse-chasers have a challenging time getting to the path of a total solar eclipse, and that was certainly true for anyone who wanted to see April 20th's event. The path of totality crossed very little land - it started in the southern Indian Ocean, barely clipped the westernmost corner of Australia, and crossed Timor-Leste and eastern Indonesia before sliding off into the Pacific Ocean.
However, such remoteness didn't deter thousands of "umbraphiles" who crammed onto Australia's remote Exmouth Peninsula or aboard cruise ships off the Australian coast. Eclipse day dawned nearly cloud free all along the track, even though a powerful cyclone had battered the region just a week beforehand.
The event was a geometric oddity: a hybrid solar eclipse, one that is total in the middle but annular at its beginning and end. This occurs because the Moon appears slightly larger at the mid-eclipse point than it does at the beginning and end of the eclipse track, which are one Earth radius farther from the Moon. So the Sun's disk is completely covered from that midpoint but appears as a thin or broken ring at either end of it. This unusual geometry, which occurs roughly once per decade, meant that totality on April 20th would be brief - a meager 1m 16s at best (near Timor-Leste).
Still, the event was a big draw: Some 15,500 visitors surged into the area in and around Exmouth, ordinarily a quiet town of roughly 3,000, and thousands more packed cruise ships off the coast. Sky & Telescope's group of 140 enjoyed totality while anchored in Exmouth Gulf aboard P&O Cruises' 2,000-passenger Pacific Explorer, and I traveled literally halfway around the world (Boston to Perth) to join them.
Timor-Leste was another popular destination for eclipse-chasers. Bob Kieckhefer observed from near Com, on the island nation's eastern tip. "We had a few small clouds in the area, but they were well away from the Sun during totality," he reports. "We saw great shadow bands both before and after totality."
Special Effects
Given the near-perfect match of the solar and lunar disks in the sky, this eclipse offered some interesting phenomena that are not commonly seen during total solar eclipses. For example, Baily's beads (the bits of Sun still in view along the Moon's crenulated limb just before and after totality) were especially dramatic. Long swaths of the brilliant, crimson chromosphere rimmed the merged disks, punctuated by large prominences on the leading edge. The largest of these jutted 50,000 miles (six Earth diameters) high.
Of course, the feathery solar corona was the big draw, and it did not disappoint. Several bright streamers fanned out all around the disk - the kind of well-spaced arrangement that's characteristic of the corona's appearance near solar maximum. (During solar minimum, the streamers are usually concentrated at the Sun's equatorial latitudes.)
And because totality's path was less than 30 miles (50 km) wide, the sky never got very dark at mid-eclipse - though Jupiter (just 6ř away) and Venus were easily seen.
All Eyes on the Americas
This was the first total solar eclipse since December 21, 2021, an equally challenging event observable only from Antarctica or the Southern Ocean. But now diehard eclipse-chasers will get a reprieve. Next up is an annular (ring) solar eclipse on October 14th that crosses the western U.S., the Yucat n, Central America, and northern South America.
Six months later, on April 8, 2024, the Moon's shadow races over central Mexico before heading across much of the U.S. and the Canadian Maritimes. It'll be the second such event for Americans in a span of seven years, and this time totality will last up to a generous 4« minutes.
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
================================================================================
= ____ __ ____ ___ _ _ ____ ____ ____ ____ =
= ( __)( )(___ \ / __)( \/ )( _ \ ( _ \( _ \/ ___) =
= ) _) )( / __/( (_ \ ) / ) _ ( ) _ ( ) _ (\___ \ =
= (____)(__)(____) \___/(__/ (____/ (____/(____/(____/ =
= PART OF THE DONEGAL PACKET RADIO NETWORK =
= Packet: EI2GYB@EI2GYB.DGL.IRL.EURO =
= Email/PayPal: EI2GYB@GMAIL.COM =
================================================================================
Read previous mail | Read next mail
| |
