The 2012 Annular Eclipse Event

Started by a2capt, May 21, 2012, 01:59:41 AM

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a2capt

An Annular type of Solar Eclipse is happening today, right now actually, with it's greatest eclipse occurring at 23:53:54 Zulu, with a total duration of just under 7 hours.

The ground path of the 2012 Annular Eclipse will be from the eastern China coast and the Taiwan island, pretty much down the middle of, and across southern Japan, south of the Korean peninsula , across the northern Pacific just south of the most extreme Aleutian Island chain, making "landfall" about 100 miles south of the CA/OR border, near Crescent City, continuing towards just north of Reno, NV and then just south of Cedar City, UT, on a path that nearly goes right over Albuquerque, NM.

It's called an Annular Eclipse because due to the distance of the Moon being at it's farthest distance from Earth, it gives an appearance similar to an Annulus, which in mathematics is the area between two concentric circles.

Also known as a Ring of Fire, because it would give the appearance that the dark side of the Moon is on fire, and coming around to the lighted side.

This is the first Solar Eclipse of the 21st Century over the Continental United States, and the last one occurred on 10-May, 1994. The next eclipse in this series will occur on 1-June, 2030. Known as the Solar Saros 128 cycle, this is #58. These events occur once every 18 years and 11 days.

Something else to make note:

The ground path of an eclipse is an excellent visual example of a Great Circle route, which is the most direct route between two points on a planet, but does not look like it. An airliner flying from Tokyo (NRT) to San Francisco (SFO) would fly pretty much this same path, unless it was going to take advantage of the Jet Stream, in which it would appear to "go straight out across the Pacific Ocean.

For the  cadets out there, when your modules talk about Eclipses and Great Circles, you can relate the two.

A video example of the Ground Track and NASA's page, though slammed at the moment during the event.

(I knew I should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque..)

AngelWings

Read the title too fast and thought it meant Eclipse, our fellow CAPTalk member  >:D

I wish I lived on the west coast. I've always been a bit interested in things like solar flares and eclipses.

SarDragon

I watched it for about 20 minutes on my 20-minutes-to-build Camera Obscura. Had a small crowd in the theater parking lot looking at it, right after seeing The Avengers.
Dave Bowles
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