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The total solar eclipse which just occurred on the 22nd of July 2009 was the longest maximum duration of the 21st century. Not since Saros 1991 have astronomers and eclipse chasers been treat to such an event! Totality lasted over six and a half minutes at maximum. duration. The event started in India along the western shore near Surat moved towards Butan and reached the southern tip of Nepal and the northern edge of Bangladesh.
But he wasn’t alone… And neither was I. Millions of folks all over China were witnessing the eclipse and with each video I felt more and more like I was there, too.
“In the Zhejiang Haining, huge amounts of people were out to observe the wonderful total solar eclipse. The observation person is sea of people. But two big marvelous sight’s secret directions are the Sun, the Earth and the Moon…. “three meet”.”
Our next video comes from Chengdu… You can imagine the city stopping for just a moment to look skyward. “As soon as the totality happened, the clouds closed in so we couldn’t see the corona. That’s a pity,” said Zhen Jun, a man whose work unit had given the day off for the spectacle.
Now, I’ll race you to Hong Kong! Hundreds of people thronged into the Hong Kong Space Museum Wednesday morning for the Partial Solar Eclipse Observation activity. The public watched the eclipse using telescopes equipped with a safe filtering system and projection under guidance provided by the Space Museum.
Gosh, some of that footage feels like you could just reach right out and wrap your hand around that Moon, doesn’t it? Now let’s head to the middle of Anhui Yi County…
Now we travel to the Henan Luoyang and say hello to these great kids and their equally excited parents and grandparents as we catch a partial eclipse.
“Luoyang’s light rain was intermittent, in the morning about 10:45, the Sun opened out the cloud layer to reveal the face of what was to come. The residents might see the partial solar eclipse! This kind of picture has not been seen here for a very long time. The Henan Luoyang partial solar eclipse looks just like the raging fire phoenix raising slowly.”
Shall we continue to Taiwan? Then grab us a cup of coffee and I will meet you at the Taibei Municipal Astronomy Scientific Culture Hall.
Shall we travel to Shenyang? This was also a partial solar eclipse location, but witnesses said the Moon “seemed like it was curved”.
Now, come with us to Ningbo. This one is so beautiful I wept when I saw it…
“This morning we just watched the total solar eclipse, which happens every 500 years. When the whole sun is blacken by the Moon. Everyone is highly excited. It’s pity I forgot to bring the camera by my side and the moment is passed away soon. But I am still lucky to see the sight. 500 years……how significant!”
Enjoy this beautiful composite image taken by Yang Lei at a park in southwest China’s Chongqing Municipality. It has been my most wonderful pleasure over the day to spend time in the East…
Chasing the Sun!
My many thanks to Bill Fish for getting me started, Jessica Bian for investigating and translating and the wonderful people at Sina for sharing!
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