Friday, September 5, 2008

Wrapping up the TSE of 2008 - and two other eclipses since

Many initial reports about the surprisingly well observed total solar eclipse of 1 August 2008 have already been summarized after 3 days and another week, and the most detailled view of the corona has been hailed - here's a third collection of links to reports and pictures from around the world, beginning at an even earlier point than the other two:
  • From the soil of Canada the eclipse could be seen, as a dramatic picture (from Alert) in this story as well as this picture (from Somerset Island) demonstrate.

  • From an icebreaker in the Arctic comes this report.

  • The polar flight out of Germany is featured in this report and this story, plus a widely read German news story.

  • Many more reports and pictures from (low) Russia are here (another "Druckmüllerization"), here (striking contacts composite), here, here, here (very hi-res) and here.

  • From the Russian Altai (close to Mongolia) comes this image, taken here, while other sites were cloudy, as these pictures from another expedition nearby show.

  • From Mongolia come reports of successes from here, here, here, here and here. And Science magazine, of all places, has a long & dramatic story, incl. a narrated slide show ...

  • From China's Xinjiang province we have a more complete picture report by yours truly (and also a new trip report in German), a study of the sky polarization (plus much more from the same trip) and a view from the edge of the zone of totality with extended Baily's beads.

  • From China's Gansu province many more results and reports have been published here and here (with a nice flash spectrum) and here and here and here and here and here (cool foreground) and here.

  • Finally from Xian with a very low Sun comes this report, with the eclipse here. So, as in 2006, totality has been seen from the ground along almost its complete track!
Still not enough reports? You can check other big link collections here and here. The eclipse was also covered on Opposite End of China (earlier; what it is). And the next eclipse is already terrifying small Japanese islands which will strictly control the expected crowds ...

The partial lunar eclipse two weeks later was also observed widely in several continents - and used for some experiments. For example by compositing the segment of the umbra that swept over the Moon its size could be measured; these composites were popular with this deep partial eclipse are rarely before as images here, here, here (also here and annotated) and here show. Others tried High Dynamic Range imaging (here, here and here) or observed stellar occultations or nearby Neptune (more) during the eclipse which was webcast from many places. Yet more nice pictures of the event are here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. The Chinese lunar orbiter, by the way, was not harmed by the event. Want still more recent "eclipses"? The Moon in the Plejades cluster another week later can be seen here (yours truly - no tripod ...), here and here.

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