View Full Version : Total Solar Eclipse
window-seat
29th Mar 2006, 20:43
There we were sat fat, dumb and happy, in clear air, somewhere over Southern Turkey at FL370 around 11.00 utc this morning, when I said to the Skipper ‘Has the light gone a little strange, or is it me’?? He agreed and it was then that I realised the sky above us was….well, night time, Stars out all over the place!!! The sun was virtually overhead (amongst the stars) and after managing to angle the sun visor, and donning the sunnies, I could make out a small section of the sun was missing!
Within a couple of minutes the whole sun was blocked out (we presumed by the moon) and it was night within a small radius of what looked like a hundred miles or so, with normal sunlight beyond. Most weird! It lasted just long enough for half the cabin crew to come up front for a look and then daylight (and the sun) returned!! I never thought I would get to witness this rare event in my life, let alone when minding my own business several miles above the earth!
On getting home I did a search and found this on’t tinternet!
On Wednesday, 2006 March 29, a total eclipse of the Sun will be visible from within a narrow corridor which traverses half the Earth. The path of the Moon's umbral shadow begins in Brazil and extends across the Atlantic, northern Africa, and central Asia where it ends at sunset in western Mongolia. A partial eclipse will be seen within the much broader path of the Moon's penumbral shadow, which includes the northern two thirds of Africa, Europe, and central Asia.
Did anyone else get to see this phenomenon today?? Has anyone had any similar bizarre unexpected events whilst flying?? :eek:
W-S
Rainboe
29th Mar 2006, 20:53
Astronomers have been flying en masse to southern Turkey to view there, as well as other destinations. Accra apparently had a grandstand view. It has been as well publicised as the astronomical world has been able to catch the interests of the media, who seem not to know about these things themselves until they actually happen. What you are displaying is the separation of modern living from its natural roots- people used to be quite aware of this sort of thing! You obviously don't read astronomy magazines! It has been well planned for......just nobody seems to be interested unless they are an astronomy 'nerd'!
window-seat
29th Mar 2006, 20:59
No I don’t read astronomy magazines, but the event did make me put down the FHM for a minute!! :E
W-S
greek-freak
30th Mar 2006, 08:51
We witnessed it yesterday in Crete (from the ground), though it was not 100%. The 100% trajectory passed South of Crete with an ENE heading.
Stupid enough you can't vector those things :-)
It was great, the whole research institute where I work was having a party, with the Physics department going crazy.
ThinkRate
30th Mar 2006, 10:31
The only place in "Europe" where total eclipse of the sun (100% coverage) took place was the small, picturesque Greek island of Kastelorizo (LGKJ) to the extreme south-east of the Aegean Sea. Even in nearby Rhodes coverage was "only" 98%, so not as spectacular.
The usual crowd of hundreds of spotters, eclipse-hunters, astronomers, various other scientists and tourists flooded the small place in anything that would get them there. Katamaran speedboats were summoned to take people there from Rhodes for the day and back, since there were not enough places to put eberyone up for the night.
Dozens of light aircraft from the small-but-faithful GA community in Greece flooded the small apron of the aircraft carrier-like airfiled on the rocky island. I was stuck working in Athens so I couldn't go :{ :{ :{ but lots of friends went and here's some nice pictures from some of them in a TB20.
http://hellasga.com/gallery/lgkj
TR
--------------------------------
ThinkRate! ThinkRate! Don'tThink!
Rainboe
30th Mar 2006, 10:42
Just to clarify, here is the path of the eclipse through Africa and the Med area, Antalya was about the best bet:
http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/SEmono/TSE2006/TSE2006fig/TSE2006-fig02b.GIF
Many British astronomers viewed from southern Turkey- I have had no feedback yet.
greek-freak
30th Mar 2006, 11:15
@thinkrate: this was really an awful post, I am so jealous :-(
Kyprianos Biris
30th Mar 2006, 18:05
The photo album now is complete.
http://hellasga.com/gallery/lgkj
No words to explain the experience we went through at Kastelorizo yesterday :oh:
punkalouver
31st Mar 2006, 02:10
Can you log that as night flying?
Kyprianos Biris
31st Mar 2006, 08:25
LOL! Why not I guess ...
You can log 4 minutes night flight.
What I know for sure is that one of the other aircraft there wanted to come later some half hour before total eclipse. ATC advised them (the day before when they were chating about it) that they cannot approve such a (day VFR) flight plan since the phenomenon will be in progress during that time period.
Since when do ATC approve VFR FPL's in non controlled airspace ? but this is another story not to hijack the thread please !
mjudk
31st Mar 2006, 18:07
Antalya was brimming with British flights. At least 3 Monarchs and several Mytravels. The A300-600 we flew down on was full. I don't know where all the Germans went since I always thought that this area was very popular with tourists from that country.
As for the eclipse, well, if you only do one thing in life then go and see a total eclipse....:cool:
Doors to Automatic
5th Apr 2006, 10:12
As for the eclipse, well, if you only do one thing in life then go and see a total eclipse....:cool:
I couldn't agree more - it is one of the most amazing things you will ever see. Also make sure it is a total eclipse rather than an annular one.
Last October's eclipse in Spain was annular in that the moon's position was further away from the earth than usual such that whilst completely "inside" the sun it didn't cover it entirely. Around 1% of sunlight got through - it really makes all the difference if the sun is completely covered (as in Turkey last week). I'm gutted I missed it!
I was one of those who did the 2 day trip to Antalya with Monarch to see it. Totally amazing, in retrospect I wish I hadn't taken a camera as I spent half the time taking photos, rather than looking at it all.
Monarch and Antalya did an amazing job of getting everyone away on time on Thursday (well, only half an hour delay - if only BA could be that good LHR-ABZ).
It also reminded me why I haven't flown charter for 5 years.
GwynM
MichaelJP59
5th Apr 2006, 13:57
It's kind of ironic that people pay thousands of pounds to fly round the world to be in the path of totality, whereas window-seat had a once-in-a-lifetime grandstand view of the eclipse, and didn't even know it was coming:)
The aerial view of the moon's shadow must have been amazing.
bubbers44
5th Apr 2006, 17:35
Aruba had a three and a half minute total eclipse about ten years ago and I was lucky enough to have the B757 trip that day from Miami. We expedited the flight to land before the 2:10 PM event but ATC had us on a 10 mile final landing east when it happened.
We could only see the runway lights and a silhouette of the hills and no physical airport features until short final. We touched down in total darkness and when we cleared the runway it was daylight again. I video taped the whole approach but the camera adjusts for the darkness so didn't look as impressive as what we saw with our eyes. What an incredible experience.
niknak
5th Apr 2006, 18:46
Well we had it for 15 minutes in the UK and it covered about a quarter of the sun, so we all had a power nap to compensate.
waffler
6th Apr 2006, 10:11
I saw the whole eclipse from the cliffs in Antalya.It lasted about 3 minutes and was so beautiful I nearly dropped my beer.The most incredible thing was how the light changed as the totality approached. Some poor sod took off at the start of it and turned away from it soon after take off. I would have requested runway heading for 3 minutes due weather.
rodthesod
6th Apr 2006, 23:45
Window-seat
There I lay fat, dumb & happy by my pool-side in Southern Turkey, cameras ready, waiting for the total eclipse of the sun. As I gazed skywards, pondering serious issues like 'should I put on a T-shirt 'cos it will probably get cooler in a moment', I observed several con-trails above. Two were heading Westwards and I wondered if the crews were aware that they were imminently about to be plummeted into darkness. I wondered if the Captains had PA'd pax about the forthcoming event and arranged with ATC to throw a couple of 180's in each direction (or maybe a barrel roll) so that said pax could all get a shufty at the corona through their windies.
No such luck, but as one of the trails changed from white to silver and then a reddish hue before disappearing in the 'night sky' I thought I saw a 'thinks bubble' emerge from the cockpit. Or perhaps it was just one of those little 'coughs' you sometimes see in con-trails for no apparent reason.
Thats the kind of c**p musing retired old aerobatic farts like me get up to when they've nothing better to do.
Cheers Dears,;)
RTS
Rainboe
7th Apr 2006, 10:18
This thread has brought home to me, as an amateur astronomer, how great the divorce is now of people from their natural world. I'd like to write a few brief words about Jeremiah Horrocks. Born in 1617, and not at all wealthy, he went to Cambridge Uni at about 14. He became a curate near Liverpool, and being a complete amateur astronomer, set to work on his own hobby. Remember this is before the days of magazines like Sky and Telescope etc, you had to work off your own motivation and enthusiasm. Even texts were almost non existent. He gained enough self taught knowledge to disagree with Keppler, and predicted on his own that a transit of Venus would occur across the face of the sun at about 3pm on 24 November 1639. He hurried home and using his self designed card viewing system sure enough spotted the black dot of Venus moving across the face of the sun before the sun got too low in the sky. It happened only 6 times between 1600 and 2000. He died in 1641 at the age of 24! Self taught. I could only be amazed at how in touch with natural events people used to try and be under much harder circumstances than now. Now people look up and say 'why's it getting dark, Norah?' as a miraculous show of nature takes place.
PS the most recent transit of June 2004 took place on a day of miraculously clear weather over the south of England. Every moment of it was visible in marvellous sunshine and the massed telescopes of my astronomy club were set up and everybody viewing for about 5 or 6 hours. It had a brief mention on the TV news, and live coverage, but people seemed to have other things to do.
P.Pilcher
7th Apr 2006, 16:31
For much of my life I had been aware that the next total eclipe of the sun would be visible from Cornwall. Accordingly in 1999, all accommodation there was going at premium prices, the motorways were jammed and the palce was crowded - so I was told. It was overcast and few saw anything except to note that it momentarily went dark. On the other hand I, with wife, son, daughter and friend was over Cornwall at FL 100 in a light twin. We saw everything and got a video of the whole trip. The cost of hiring the aircraft was significantly less than the cost of five tickets to observe the eclipse from Concord(e) the only difference being that we could see everything and we didn't get our champagne until we had landed afterwards!
P.P.
Ahh, August 1999.
We should have joined you being airborne.. we were roughly 10,000 feet below you at Slapton Sands...The Sun came up - clear blue sky...the clouds arrived -total overcast ....it then went very dark for a while :{ . Then it got bright again...then the clouds cleared ......
Don't you just love British weather:hmm: