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My prior TravelQuest tour, Egypt 2006 from Salloum Egypt.
The TravelQuest tour, China 2009:
Sky & Telescope, TravelQuest International and Champion Holidays hosted a wonderful tour of China's history, culture, architecture, food and people. The tour was punctuated with the exquisite experience of the longest total solar eclipse of this century. My journey was shared with fellow eclipse chasers aboard the now infamous "Bus 1-A". I hope that the images and information on this site will spark memories for those of you who made the trip and encourage others to take a tour with TravelQuest and chase your dreams around the world.
Our commemorative pin that was provided by TravelQuest.
Returning to "Bus 1-A" was always a delight!
07/22/09 Eclipse day in China:
The path of totality on July 22, 2009 is illustrated here. Click on an image for a higher resolution view.
Our observing site is marked with a red asterisk on the maps above.
The eclipse was seen from Eastern China about 70 miles south of Shanghai. We were on the south shore of Hangzhou Bay with the East China Sea about 50 miles further to our east. The site was located at N 30o 19' 39" Latitude and W 121o 10' 45.6" Longitude. The magnetic declination was W 5 degrees 20 minutes. We were treated to rain almost all morning right up to totality with only a hint of a visible sun. The overall appearance of the sky to the west, prior to totality, was very dark. The darkness was highly accentuated by the presence of thick clouds. These unwanted clouds parted somewhat, literally a minute before 2nd contact allowing us to visually see the moon cover the sun the moment totality began. With the cheers and screams of us all, we were then swallowed up and enveloped by the silvery darkness of the Moon's shadow. At our location we witnessed 5 minutes and 36 seconds of darkness as the shadow of the moon passed overhead creating the illusion of a total solar eclipse. We were able to see the corona for most of the first two minutes of totality. The corona could only be seen momentarily as it popped in and out of view during the last three and a half minutes of the eclipse.
The following images are frame captures from my video camera. This wide field of view is about 45 degrees tall and about 80 degrees in width. The image of the sun is rather small in these pictures however, the lunar disk and corona can still be seen. There are several things to note here. First, the presence of clouds nearly obscured our view; it could have been worse if the decision hadn't been made to move our observing site farther South. Thanks to Jay Anderson and the TravelQuest team for getting all of us to a better location. Reports revealed that totality was completely covered by clouds at our original observing site. Second, it rained up to the time totality began; umbrellas and rain ponchos are not usually part of the desired items used prior to a total solar eclipse. We were all very happy when the rain stopped just as totality began. Third, we had the pleasure of having sodium vapor lamps; yes the Chinese equivalent of CalTrans wanted to make sure we were all safe and kindly turned on all the street lights for us so we wouldn't loose our way in the darkness. ;-)
I think most everyone would agree that the overall experience was well worth the effort. Although conditions were less than perfect for high resolution photography, our adventure of being in the right place at the right time for this eclipse will be remembered as a focal event of our lifetime.
Click on each image for a larger view.
About an hour before totality:
About 45 minutes before totality:
20 seconds prior to totality:
The shadow was approaching from the west. That would be from behind this field of view and to the right..
2 seconds prior to totality:
About 60 seconds after totality began:
2 seconds after totality ended:
20 seconds after totality ended:
Click if you want to download the 7 minute video ~48 MB. It is only a 640 x 360 pixel resolution WMV file. It shows the entire eclipse from 30 seconds prior to and after totality.
The following images were shot with a Nikon 300mm f/2.8 with a 2x teleconverter. These were shot by Mike Mayda. The set-up can be seen in the above video frames.
Less than a second before 2nd contact.
Totality!
A few seconds before 3rd contact.
Less than a second after 3rd contact.
The following shows the profile of the mountains and valleys of the moon at the time of totality. This figure has been taken from the NASA publication found here by Jay Anderson and Fred Espenak. The second and third contact Baily's Beads images have been scaled, aligned and superimposed onto the lunar limb profile. This illustrates the correct position of the points of entry exit of the moon relative to the solar disk. Note the clear relationship of the bright knots of the Baily's Beads and the lunar valleys. Likewise, note the clear relationship of the dark knots of the Baily's Beads and the lunar mountains. Since our observing site was south of the center line, the 2nd and 3rd contact points are oriented toward the south limit.
Eclipse day gallery. Below are a few images from the eclipse site. Click on any of the images for a larger view.
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