Astronomy Picture of the Day 5-30-03

NASA ^ | 5-30-03 | Robert Nemiroff and Jerry Bonnell

[petuniasevan]

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2003 May 30

Ring of Fire Revisited
Credit & Copyright: Dennis Mammana (Skyscapes)

Explanation: Early on Saturday, May 31 (UT) the new Moon will once again slide across the Sun's fiery disk, and once again an annular solar eclipse will be the result -- since the Moon's apparent diameter will be a little too small to completely cover the Sun. But this time celestial geometry has conspired to produce a broad D-shaped region for viewing the annular phase that extends into the far northern hemisphere, rather than creating a thin track racing across land and sea. The characteristic ring of fire will be visible from northern Scotland, Iceland, and parts of Greenland. Otherwise a partial eclipse will be more widely visible as across Europe, along with parts of Asia and North America, the Moon will appear to take a "bite" out of the Sun. While the northerly observers might certainly expect a dramatic view, it will probably not look quite like this one, recorded with a foreground of palm trees during a 1992 annular eclipse. Want to watch Saturday's eclipse on the web? Check out the planned webcasts from Astronet.

[petuniasevan]

This will be a VERY peculiar eclipse for May 30/31, 2003.

This is an orthographic map showing the eclipse path. Note the extremely oblique (slanted) path the moon's shadow will take. Thus the path is quite wide but short.

This eclipse will NOT be visible from the continental US or eastern Canada, but Alaska and parts of northwest Canada will view varying amounts of partiality.

The animation shows the shadow of the Moon moving across the Earth during the eclipse. Within the lightly shaded area of the shadow the eclipse will only be partial. The area in which the eclipse will be annular is marked by the moving red spot. This area just touches the north tip of Scotland, from where the annular eclipse will occur just after dawn, at 3:45 am GMT. The path of annularity will vanish just off the west coast of Greenland at 4:32 am GMT.

Detail of the path of annularity:

For RightWhale: Anchorage, Alaska will experience a partial eclipse late in the day TODAY, May 30th. Here are the stats:

Anchorage, AK start 04:31 GMT, maximum 05:28 GMT, end 06:21 GMT. sun altitude 9 sun azimuth 300 sun obscured 42%

[petuniasevan]

[farmfriend]

Ooooo, Aaaaahhhh!!!!

[xJones]

So cool, thanks for your threads.

[petuniasevan]

I forgot to mention:

Freeper unix has kindly volunteered to post the APOD in my absence next week (June 2-9).

You will not have to go through withdrawal symptoms! ;-D

[farmfriend]

It's great that you can get someone to fill in. I do enjoy these and pass them on to other people who do not freep.

[firewalk]

Thanks for the ping
good morning

[fnord]

Has the shadow moving across the surface ever been photographed from space? That would be an awesome video. Have a nice vacation.

[theDentist]

I love that Eclipse thru the Palms photo!

[petuniasevan]

Yes, it has!

Click here for an MPEG movie file of an eclipse shadow
courtesy of the GOES-7 weather satellite.

[petuniasevan]

Crud. That red x was a good preview. (Geocities, no wonder)

Here's the link:

http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/7137/imgsol/shadow_0898ani.gif

[sistergoldenhair]

Wow!

[mikrofon]

PB: "I sure hope I can figure out how to use this scope before the eclipse..."

Have a great vacation!

[fnord]

wow, thanks. That still picture is almost frightening, like something from Jupiter.