We had the coolest experience yesterday (Sunday, November 3, 2013). We got (almost) front row seats to a solar eclipse! I say almost front row because the best viewing point to see the sun totally obscured was apparently in Libreville, Gabon which is about 500 miles south of where we are. Even so, we still saw about 90% of the sun obscured and spent several hours of this afternoon in an eerie dimness – the light was as dim as if it was clouding up to rain or as if the sun was already going down, but it was “sunny” (no storm clouds in sight) and only 3 in the afternoon. Weird and fascinating. You can check out more information about this particular eclipse here, and about solar eclipses in general here. I happened to notice a snippet in the last World magazine indicating an eclipse would take place on November 3 with the best viewing area in equatorial Africa, and I’m so glad I did because this was such a fascinating thing to experience.
A few photos for you….
Checking out the box viewfinder that my hubby made.
Earlier progress above, and below about the peak of what we were able to see in our location (the peak was slightly more obscured than that, but this was the clearest photo I got.
Even the light shining on the sidewalk was crescent shaped at the peak of the eclipse.
That is really neat! The crescents on the sidewalk are incredible! Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this--so amazing!
ReplyDeletethat. is. SO. cool.
ReplyDeletei totally should have checked it out. now i'm sad i was lethargic, especially since we're all about astronomy last term. of course, i had guests and they were all just about to leave around these dates... :(