January
2010
Solar Eclipse0
It is not recommended to look directly at a solar eclipse. Neither is it recommended to consume saturated fats, eat with your hands out of a communal bowl, or ride a bike through the streets of Dar-es-Salaam during rush hour. Initially, I was prepared for exclusively appropriate eclipse viewing. I placed a piece of white paper against a tree, cut a pin hole through a piece of aluminum foil and then held it between the paper and the moon, as the moon floated between the foil and the sun. Here in Dar, eclipse coverage reached 71.74% at 5:31:48.8 GMT/UT, or roughly 8:30 am, which the locals call half-past two in the morning (sensibly starting the clock when the sun comes up at 7:00 am). It is not recommended to look directly at a solar eclipse, though I don’t know how anyone can resist.
The clouds moved quickly this morning. When they hit just right, sometimes for nearly 30 seconds, there was just enough cloud cover to see the moon blocking out the sun without the clouds blocking them both out, and without the sun’s intensity painfully burning out your retina. Viewing the eclipse on paper was interesting, in a 6th grade science experiment kind of way. Viewing the eclipse directly was amazing, in an images from the Hubble telescope kind of way.
Simple bits of elegant celestial geometry, solar eclipses attract the more adventurous of the more polar residents towards the equator. The Central African Republic, China, India, Kenya, the Maldives, Myanmar, Somalia, Sri Lanka and Uganda got the best show this time around. Coming from the US, I had never seen a solar eclipse before. Here in Dar, they last saw one in 2005, but will have them again in 2013, 2016, 2020, 2027 and 2030, before getting the greatest show on earth, a total eclipse of the sun in 2031. I would like to be around for that one, provided I haven’t already burned out my retinas.