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This year we’re in for a real treat! The citizens of planet Earth will be treated to not one – but four – partial solar eclipses and the first will begin on January 4. Ready to find out where and when? Then step inside….
If you’re planning on watching, remember eye safety and use a proper solar filter for telescopes and binoculars. If it’s too late to get a filter or your budget won’t allow, why not try building your own pinhole projector? Get two pieces of cardboard – one will need to be white or have white paper attached to it for the screen. Cut a small square in the other piece of cardboard, and tape aluminum foil over the square. Now make a pinhole in the middle of the foil. This is your “projector”. With the Sun behind you, hold the pinhole projector as far away from the screen as you can. The farther away you are from the screen, the bigger your image will be. You won’t be able to see fine details like sunspots, but you’ll easily see the changes as the Moon passes over the face of the Sun!
Don’t be upset if you don’t catch this eclipse. The next will happen on June 1, 2011 and be for the eastern region of Asia, northern region of North America and some islands of the North Atlantic. Again? How about July 1, 2011 and this time be over the Indian Ocean and the small islands in this ocean. Still not found you? Then how about November 25, 2011 and southern regions of Africa and Australia and whole of Antarctica!
Want to watch the eclipes live? Then join the cast and crew at Bareket Observatory and at AstronomyLive.com!
Thanks Tammy,
Saved a lot of work for me as I prepare for our partial solar eclipse in the UK.
Also to try and explain why they appear to come in sets.
Also not forgetting that we have lunar eclipses in June and Dec.
Brian.
Hi,
the map is wrong. 21 years after the Reunion of Germany it still shows an East- and a West-German state. Seems that NASA isn’t up-to-date…
Do you have any idea how many charts would have to be corrected? Most were produced between 1983 and 1987. The latest is 2006 are computer generated and cover from 1999BC to 3000AD.
There are some 8,000 or more solar eclipse drawings like this one in the Cannon of Eclipses. (And about 5200 lunar ones)
There is a great pdf file that explains all this “Five Millennium Canon of Solar Eclipses: –1999 to +3000 (2000 BCE to 3000 CE)” (NASA / TP–2006-2-14141) at; http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/5MCSE/5MCSE-Text.pdf (1.8Mb) They do say;
Frankly, if you must be absolutely correct, then shouldn’t the countries be dated from when the eclipse occurs? I.e. 1990, when the USSR was broken up, or eclipse before 1816, when Argentina separated from Spain (as did Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay did the same thing, etc.
Richard is right. Holy crap!
Hey, wake up everyone, the Cold War is over!
…and to add, Yugoslavia is still Yugoslavia…and i don’t see see Slovak and Czech republic separation. We could go on with this for days!
Yes, but NASA’s website has an updated Europe map:
http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/OH/OHfigures/OH2011-Fig01.pdf
I have a globe that was made in 1938. I suspect there are very few of these made and fewer still in existence. It shows Germany with borders where it had taken the Sudetenland, but not yet the rest of Czechslovakia. This state of affairs with borders only lasted less than a year. Nazi Germany munched the Bohemian part of Czechoslovakia before they invaded Poland in Sept 1939.
LC
How very interesting… Have you ever had it appraised for historical or commercial value?
Seems to me that Hollywood set designers would be VERY interested in that period’s decor?
I hate clouds….
…except if they’re somewhere else.
Yeah, but this morning they were between me and the moon, thus blocking the view almost all the time. At least, a few looks at the crescent sun were possible, but not for long.
And I don’t want to change with the Australians at the moment. That’s where one can hate clouds…