There’s a total solar eclipse next Wednesday, 22 July 2009.
But chances are, you are not in northern India or central China. Which makes it unlikely you’ll catch the total eclipse outside. Which makes it a good thing that it will be shown “live” at this website, SunStopper.sg. (Thank you Internet, yet again!)
In Shanghai, the total eclipse will begin at about 01:30 hours UTC/GMT, which is around 09:30 am local Shanghai time.
This eclipse promises to be a grand one, the longest one this century at 6 minutes 39 seconds. (The next longer one will be on 13 June 2132, so if you’d like to wait…)
Eclipses aren’t all that rare — there are generally two and up to five solar eclipses a year. But not all are total eclipses, and since the path of totality falls along a narrow corridor, not all are seen by a great number of people.
This total solar eclipse will begin in the early morning in northern India, travel through central China then hit the Pacific Ocean to some islands in Japan. That black dot in the animation — that’s the umbral shadow of the Moon passing between the Sun and earth.
If you are in Surat, Varanasi, Patna, Thimphu, Chengdu, Chongqing, Wuhan, Hangzhou and Shanghai or somewhere in the vicinity of the Three Gorges Dam, you are in luck.
(Insert envious glare.)
The rest of Asia will get to enjoy varying degrees of a partial eclipse, as they are right in the much larger area of the Moon’s penumbral shadow.
I especially like the eclipse countdown clock widget you can download from SunStopper.
It’s the only Sun I get to see these days.
Tags: solar eclipse, sunstopper
