in article lid, Aidan
Karley at lid wrote on 03/02/2005 02:04:

If you are wanting serious information about past/ present/ future
eclipses, then the SunEarth site at NASA is a very good start :
http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/eclipse.html
Following links there, I see that :
The path of this event begins as an annular eclipse but it changes to
total about 2200 km south of Tahiti. At maximum eclipse (UT), the
duration of totality is 45 seconds. Unfortunately, the total portion
of the track never crosses land. The path becomes annular again about
800 km west of Costa Rica. By the time the shadow reaches the coast
of Costa Rica, the annular phase will already be 12 seconds and
growing. After crossing Panama and Colombia, the central path ends
in Venezuela where a 33 second annular eclipse will occur at sunset.

how does an annular eclipse only last for 33 seconds. i s'pose there is
only one instant of time when the moon is perfectly smack-dab in front of
the sun (if it is at all), but if you allow any slop in the definition of
the elapsed time of the eclipse, isn't it longer than that?

when i lived in Hanover NH in 1993 and 94, in one of those years (i think it
was 94), i saw a total annular eclipse (i wish it was a total-TOTAL eclipse
of the sun) and it lasted for longer than that as i recall.

--

r b-j

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."