Get Set For The Annular Solar Eclipse Australia!

Get Set For The Annular Solar Eclipse Australia!






If you’re outside the eclipse path (mainly along the Aussie East Coast) you should see something like this.

An annular eclipse of the Sun, when a ring of everyday Sun remains around the Moon’s silhouette, will sweep right across the Australian outback and into the Pacific Ocean.

Set your watches Australia, it happens on the morning of May 10,
local time. Though about 95% of the solar disc will be covered, the
remaining 5% of Sun will be so bright that the darkening of the sky
would hardly be noticeable except to those watching through specially
filtered glasses. Unlike the case for the recent total eclipse, the
special filters must be used throughout the entire event.




A past Annular Eclipse taken from the centre of the eclipse path

Prof. Jay Pasachoff of Williams College in Massachusetts, USA, the
Chair of the International Astronomical Union’s Working Group on
Eclipses, will be viewing his 56th solar eclipse. “Solar eclipses can be
inspirational to students and others, so it is interesting to have
everyone view the eclipse, but only safe methods of viewing should be
used,” he cautions. Pasachoff is traveling with Melissa Hulbert of
Sydney Observatory and others to the vicinity of Tennant Creek NSW
Australia for the event. The event there will occur for a few minutes
shortly after 8 a.m. local time.

The rest of Australia will see a partial solar eclipse. During the
partial phases or annularity, the remaining solar disk is too bright to
look at safely, unless you are looking through specially filtered
glasses that knock out 99.999% of the sunlight. Projection of a partly
eclipsed Sun should be visible on footpaths or building walls in what is
known as pinhole projection, with the small hole usually formed from
small spaces between the leaves of trees. Binoculars can be used safely
only if they are used to project an image down on the ground or across
on a wall, given the low angle of the Sun; it is hazardous to look at
the Sun through binoculars unless they are properly filtered.

The annular phase will start in extreme northwest Australia in the
state of Western Australia, where some veteran eclipse chasers will try
to see it at sunrise. The 300-km-wide path will include Tennant Creek,
about 500 km north of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. The path
of annularity will leave the Australian continent well north of Cairns,
where tens of thousands of people saw a total solar eclipse in November,
and even north of Cooktown; Cliff Island and Flinders Group National
Parks will be in the zone. Annularity will last about 3 minutes at
Tennant Creek and about 4-1/2 minutes at the centreline, about 50 km
north of Tennant Creek. The path of annularity will leave Queensland
with about 4-3/4 minutes of annularity.




Full story here


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