[HCDX] Solar Eclipse Oct. 3 for Europe, Asia, Africa

["Mike Terry" <miketerry73@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

(Could be some unusual propagation effects)

By Joe Rao
SPACE.com Skywatching Columnist
30 September 2005

If you plan to be anywhere in Europe, Africa or parts of western and
southern Asia on Monday, Oct. 3, you will be treated to a solar eclipse.

This will be an annular or ring eclipse of the Sun, so called because the
Moon's disk will appear too small to completely cover the Sun's disk. This
circumstance is due to the fact that the Moon will be a bit farther from
Earth than average; in essence, this is really nothing more than a fancy
partial eclipse.

The panoply of striking phenomena seen during a total eclipse such as the
solar corona and prominences and the dramatic darkening of the sky
accompanied by the appearance of some of the brighter stars and planets,
will not be seen.  Rather, at maximum, sky watchers will see a "penny atop a
nickel" effect, with the Sun mimicking a blazing ring of light rimming the
dark silhouette of the Moon (creating the so-called "annulus" or ring
effect).

The path of annularity averages 118 miles/189 kilometers in width.  After
touching down in the open waters of the north Atlantic roughly a thousand
miles east of Newfoundland, the path will head in an east-southeast
direction, making landfall in northwestern Iberia, near to the border shared
by Portugal and Spain.

The citizens of Vigo, Spain and Braga, Portugal will be among the first to
see the ringed Sun, while Porto, Portugal finds itself just outside the
southern limit of the path.  Keep in mind however, that in Portugal, maximum
eclipse comes at around 9:53 a.m. WEST (Western European Summer Time).
Spain, however, follows CEST (Central European Summer Time), which runs an
hour later, so clocks there will read 10:53 a.m.

Vacationers in Madrid on this day, will have the track of the so-called
"negative shadow" or  "anti-umbra" of the Moon passing directly over this
metropolis of nearly four million resulting in the Sun mimicking a
spectacular "ring of fire" for 4 minutes 11 seconds beginning at 10:56 a.m.
CEST.  Valencia, also within the track, will be treated to 3 minutes 38
seconds of annularity beginning just after 11:00 a.m. CEST.

The path then crosses the Mediterranean Sea, passing over Ibiza, the
southwesternmost of the three Balearic Islands, and then sweeps south and
east across northern and eastern Africa, affecting parts of Algeria,
Tunisia, Libya, Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia.  The path will
come to an end over the central Indian Ocean.  It is over central Sudan that
the annular eclipse reaches its maximum: the apparent diameter of the Moon's
disk appearing just 4.2 percent smaller than that of the Sun.  Here, the
duration of annularity will last 4 minutes 31.6 seconds.

http://www.space.com/spacewatch/050930_solar_eclipse.html

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