Viewing the sun's harsh light should only be done through protective equipment Tuesday witnesses the first partial solar eclipse of 2011.
People standing across a great swathe of the Earth's surface are seeing the Moon take a big bite out of the Sun.
For north Africa and much of Europe, the event began at sunrise, whereas in central Russia and north-west China, the spectacle occurs at sunset.
North-east Sweden should have had the best sight. From 0850 GMT, near the city of Skelleftea, the Moon covered almost 90% of the Sun's diameter.
To get the best view, however, Swedish skywatchers will have had to have a high vantage point, as both celestial bodies were skirting the horizon at that time.
As is always the case for solar eclipses, the public has been warned to take great care.
Viewing the Sun's harsh light should only be done through protective equipment - proper solar glasses and solar telescopes, or through a pinhole projection system.
In many places, professional and amateur astronomy groups have set up safe observing systems. In the UK, for example, there were a series of events tied into the BBC's Stargazing Live programmes.
The Moon was seen to take a big bite out of the Sun Partial solar eclipses occur when the Sun and Moon do not quite align in the sky as viewed from Earth, and the deep shadow cast by the smaller body passing across the bigger one just misses the planet.
Nonetheless, the phenomenon will result in a dip in light, depending on how big a chunk of the solar disc the Moon can obscure. This effect will vary from place to place and in time.
Northern Algeria was the first location to experience the phenomenon at 0640 GMT. In European cities like London and Paris, the eclipse was already under way as the Sun rose, and the Moon covered up almost 70% of our star by 0812 GMT in the British capital, and 65% of the solar disc by 0809 GMT in the French capital.
The further east the event tracks, the closer it gets to local sunset. Central Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and north-west China will all observe an eclipsed Sun dive over the horizon.
LOCAL TIMES FOR SELECTED CITIES | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CITY | Eclipse starts | Eclipse Mid-point | Eclipse ends | Coverage of the Sun |
| Information courtesy of SkyandTelescope.com | ||||
| London | sunrise | 0812 | 0931 | 67% |
| Madrid | sunrise | 0852 | 1006 | 47% |
| Paris | sunrise | 0909 | 1030 | 65% |
| Rome | 0752 | 0910 | 1038 | 61% |
| Cairo | 0902 | 1031 | 1206 | 44% |
| Stockholm | sunrise | 0942 | 1105 | 79% |
| Budapest | 0805 | 0928 | 1058 | 70% |
| Istanbul | 0908 | 1037 | 1212 | 63% |
| Tel Aviv | 0909 | 1041 | 1216 | 47% |
| Moscow | 1038 | 1204 | 1330 | 74% |
| Baghdad | 1032 | 1204 | 1335 | 42% |
| Karachi | 1404 | 1446 | 1525 | 3% |
There are a number of ready reckoners on the web that compute local circumstances for just about any place on the planet.
Although there are three more partial solar eclipses this year, for Europeans in particular Tuesday's event was the key one. They will not get another chance to see so much of the Sun being covered up by the Moon until 20 March 2015.
The next total solar eclipse is in November 2013 over the South Pacific.
No comments:
Post a Comment