South American annular eclipse: 22nd September

[Weather-history]

Eclipses frequently occur in pairs (ascending and descending nodes; a node is where the Moon's orbital path crosses the Earth-Sun orbital plane, the ascending node is where the Moon moves from below the Earth-Sun plane to above the plane and the descending node is vice-versa) about 15 days apart: a lunar and a solar eclipse, generally. The partial lunar eclipse ocurred at the ascending node and an annular eclipse will occur at the descending node.

The only landfall that the track of annularity will pass over will be the South American countries of Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana and clip northern Brazil. This will occur at sunrise or early morning in these countries, so a "ring of fire" could be visible for the lucky few. The eclipse begins at 9.39am (BST) and ends at 3.40pm (BST) when the penumbral shadow of the Moon leaves the Earth at sunset in the southern Indian Ocean

However the bulk of the annularity track occurs over the Atlantic but large sections of eastern South America, western and southern Africa will see a partial eclipse. The Canary islands are just within the partial eclipse limits, Las Palmas will see a 2.5% partial. Cape Town, will see a 61% partial. Nowhere in mainland Europe will see a partial

Maximum annularity for this eclipse is 7 mins and 9s

At the moment, this is only site I can find that is going to have a live webcast of this eclipse from French Guiana

http://sems.und.edu/~sems/index.html

Edited September 17, 2006 by Mr_Data

[Weather-history]

Just a reminder that the eclipse has begun and the lucky folk of South America will see a sunrise eclipse.

[Weather-history]

Photo of the partial eclipse as seen from Cape Town

http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidt/249739391/

And other photos

http://www.flickr.com/photos/77886430@N00/250770599/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/74052799@N00/250427302/

http://www.spaceweather.com/eclipses/gallery_22sep06.htm