Solar eclipse of August 1, 2008

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Solar eclipse of August 1, 2008
Animation of the shadow path of the solar eclipse on August 1, 2008
Animation of the shadow path of the solar eclipse on August 1, 2008
classification
Type Total
area Northeastern North America , Europe , Asia
Total: Northern Canada , Greenland , Siberia , Mongolia , China
Saros cycle 126 (47 of 72)
Gamma value 0.8307
Greatest eclipse
Duration 2 minutes 27 seconds
place Northwest Siberia
location 65 ° 39 ′  N , 72 ° 16 ′  E Coordinates: 65 ° 39 ′  N , 72 ° 16 ′  E
time August 1, 2008 10:21:06 AM   UT
size 1.0394

The total solar eclipse on August 1, 2008 mainly took place in sparsely populated regions of the Canadian and European Arctic and Western Siberia. The totality zone began at the notorious nautical Northwest Passage not far from the settlement of Cambridge Bay and then crossed the islands of the Canadian Arctic, which is politically part of the Nunavut region . There are some settlements in the huge area, but the umbra fell only for about 1 m 37 s on Grise Fiord, which has about 160 inhabitants, in the south of Ellesmere Island, as well as its now uninhabited neighboring village Craig Harbor ; Resolute Bay was just missed. A few minutes later, the Black Sun could be seen over the Canadian military base Alert and then passed through the uninhabited north of Greenland and the Arctic Ocean . Along with the Russian Novaya Zemlya, it also touched the extreme northeast of Europe , but only reached the mainland beyond the Urals in the Asian part of Russia .

In the also sparsely populated Northwest Siberia , at 10:21 a.m. universal time at 65 ° 39 ' north latitude and 72 ° 16 east longitude, the maximum eclipse occurred with a duration of 2 m 27 s and 104% coverage (moon larger than the solar disk). About 25 minutes later, the umbra fell on the city of Novosibirsk for 2 m 19 s in the late afternoon local time . After other cities in southern Siberia witnessed the rare sky spectacle, the central zone on the border between Mongolia and China moved to the southwest. In the evening she reached the area around the historic Silk Road and the Great Wall before the darkness ended at sunset in the region between the major cities of Xian and Zhengzhou .

Part of the eclipse appeared on August 1, 2008 in northwest Canada , on Greenland and Iceland , in Europe north of the Mediterranean and in almost all of Asia. It achieved high degrees of coverage with a noticeable weakening of daylight in large parts of the Arctic, in northern and northeastern Europe, Siberia, Central Asia , Nepal, northern India and large areas of China.

The course of the solar eclipse on August 1, 2008, photographed from Novosibirsk every three minutes.

The darkness in Central Europe

The solar eclipse on August 1st, 2008 could only be seen as a partial solar eclipse from the entire German-speaking area . The sun was eclipsed to a maximum of 10.9% at a location 50 degrees north latitude and 10 degrees east longitude. In the north it was significantly more ( Flensburg a good 23%), in the south and southwest it was considerably less ( Munich just under 8%, Bern a little over 2%). The mentioned degrees of coverage were far too low to cause a noticeable weakening of the daylight. Without direct observation of the sun (through suitable protective goggles or filter film or with the projection method ), therefore, nothing of this celestial event could be noticed.

Web links

Commons : Solar eclipse of August 1st, 2008  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files