3076 Solar Eclipse Today

Whether you are in the UK, Eire or Italy, you should all see part of this eclipse later this morning:

[b]Skywatchers await total eclipse[/b]

Skywatchers across the globe are preparing to watch a total eclipse of the Sun on Wednesday.

An area spanning 14,500km (9,000 miles), from Ghana to Mongolia, will see the Moon completely cover the Sun for several minutes on 29 March. During the "totality", darkness will fall over the surrounding landscape and the solar atmosphere - or corona, normally hidden from view - is visible ...

The eclipse will be partial across a much wider region, including most of Africa, all of Europe, and much of western and southern Asia.
In the UK, it will be possible to observe the Sun between 10 and 20% eclipsed between 1045 British Standard Time and 1225 BST ...

The next total solar eclipse will be on 1 August, 2008, over a track stretching across North America, Europe and Asia. The path of totality will swing across Greenland, Siberia, Mongolia and China.

The UK's chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson warned that children risk severely damaging their eyesight and even blindness if they look directly at the Sun during the partial eclipse visible in the UK. The warning has been re-iterated by other governments. Viewing the Sun's harsh light should only be done through protective equipment - proper solar glasses or through a pinhole projection system ...

Category

General chat about Italy

B****y typical, it only started shining on Saturday, now the moon is going to block it out, who do I complain to ?? It's not fair :mad: :mad: :...(

I tried to find out when it was happening this morning. Was trying everything when the weather came on the TV, Great! I think, they will say something......NOTHING! I thought they were supposed to tell us what the sun was going to do? I would have thought disappearing was pretty important.:mad: :D

[LEFT]well - I tried my best with a battered floppy as a filter and a canon camera that is long due a replacement.[/LEFT]

Great pic - I had too many clouds!!
A 5 1/4" floppy I presume? What a brilliant piece of improvisation :)

Excellent piccie...well done.

Lovely pic, Ronald!!

Was in meetings indoors all morning, so no chance of seeing it! :(

Remember a total eclipse here around 5/6 years ago where we went outside our office in Aberdeen and borrowed welding goggles from the workshop to watch it! Amazing...

I filmed that eclipse here in Italy....trouble was I forgot to tell the massively overcomplicated video camera to hang on to its original exposure setting: so instead of recording the quite dramatic darkening of the world, (on a time lapse setting, to speed it all up) it just compensated on each exposure and made it all look entirely "normal".
Lost a once in a lifetime opportunity!!
Now had it been a digi vid camera I could have post processed....

[QUOTE=Relaxed]I filmed that eclipse here in Italy....trouble was I forgot to tell the massively overcomplicated video camera to hang on to its original exposure setting: so instead of recording the quite dramatic darkening of the world, (on a time lapse setting, to speed it all up) it just compensated on each exposure and made it all look entirely "normal".
Lost a once in a lifetime opportunity!!
Now had it been a digi vid camera I could have post processed....[/QUOTE]

Don't sweat it - you get to try again in 2008!

It was really weird. I didn`t know anything about it until my daughter came home from school and told me. However, I did notice it - I thought there was something wrong with my eyes, I checked my glasses etc., then finally put it down to low blood sugar level!! Was mightily relieved to hear it was a solar eclipse!:o

Hazel

[QUOTE=Iona]Lovely pic, Ronald!!

Was in meetings indoors all morning, so no chance of seeing it! :(

Remember a total eclipse here around 5/6 years ago where we went outside our office in Aberdeen and borrowed welding goggles from the workshop to watch it! Amazing...[/QUOTE]

LOL, I remember that one, 1999 in August I think, I was attending a meeting in Wiltshire with a CEO of a bedding company, he'd scheduled the meeting to coincide with the eclipse, and changed his office around so he sat in front of the window, just as he started speaking, the sun disappeared... (we still got a decent deal though, once the sun came back up to full strength, Union Power :) ;) )

[QUOTE=GeorgeS]LOL, I remember that one, 1999 in August I think, I was attending a meeting in Wiltshire with a CEO of a bedding company, he'd scheduled the meeting to coincide with the eclipse, and changed his office around so he sat in front of the window, just as he started speaking, the sun disappeared... (we still got a decent deal though, once the sun came back up to full strength, Union Power :) ;) )[/QUOTE]

Was fortunate enough to be standing on a hotel roof in St. Peter Port, Guernsey for that eclipse. The Portuguese staff were huddled in one corner praying and hugging their rosaries, whilst the 'gentile' staff were in the other corner sipping champagne... Quite a contrast - very memorable day.

That's the same one, guys! Was working for a college outside Aberdeen & we had a great view... eery how nature changes, though... birds go all quiet... Our welding workshop was running out of goggles though ... :D

Some time later, still in Aberdeenshire, I tried to capture a lunar eclipse... getting up in the middle of the night, rushing out into the garden in dressing gown & playing round with camera! Experience was similar to Relaxed's - didn't see a thing on the exposures!! Argh! :rolleyes:

Can't wait for the next one...

[QUOTE=Iona]

getting up in the middle of the night, rushing out into the garden in dressing gown & playing round with camera! Experience was similar to Relaxed's - didn't see a thing on the exposures!! Argh!

Can't wait for the next one...[/QUOTE]

Errrm, I'm not sure if this post is acceptable, errm, should we be encouraging this sort of thing..;) :D :p :o

..only just read this post so didn't know about it till today !!!!!

I do remeber the other one tho' in the garden in England with sons and eldest best friend who built one of those cardboard viewer things....very effective !!...we also had the 'free vision glasses' from the SUN newspaper ...made quite a party of it :D

had a brilliant time and what was so weird was that when it eclipsed completely..it went completely silent..all the birds stopped singing.......very surreal ( is that the right word !!) experience.:cool:

[QUOTE=GeorgeS]Errrm, I'm not sure if this post is acceptable, errm, should we be encouraging this sort of thing..;) [/QUOTE]

LOL George... I did say I was dressed...in something!!! ;);)

Alex & Lyn... definitely surreal! No other word for it! :)

I think you looked just fine in your dressing gown Matron! :D

:) :)

[QUOTE=Aliena]I think you looked just fine in your dressing gown Matron! :D

:) :)[/QUOTE]

LOL... where have you hidden the webcam, Aliena?? :D

Matron..

Aliena has eyes in the back of her head.. but I'm sure you knew that! :D

:) :)

For those of us who failed to film the exciting 1999 eclipse, the cover DVD on Focus (or maybe l'Espresso!) this week is entiltled 1999 Eclipse.

I was slightly tempted, but decided against!!