July 21 (Bloomberg) -- The longest full solar eclipse this century, lasting 6 minutes and 39 seconds in some areas, will plunge cities, including Shanghai, into darkness as it passes over India and China tomorrow.
OH YES, my friends, I'll be experiencing the wonder of TOTAL ECLIPSE 09!! Tomorrow morning we'll be experiencing the darkness of a total eclipse, and WUHAN is right in the line of shadow.
Ok so, of course, I was one of the last to know about the eclipse...well, except for the poor farmers who have never heard of such a thing, and will probably have a major freak out tomorrow morning! Anyway, for about a week, I've been noticing these "3D" looking paper glasses being sold on the street. I guess I've been in China for too long, because for quite some time I just walked past them without thinking much of it..."Oh, China's into 3D now...maybe it's like when the SuperBowl halftime show was in 3D and we all got the glasses attached to Pepsi bottles...whatever." I really just figured that there must be a hit 3D movie out or something...
But no, they're not 3D, they're SOLAR VISION glasses. Wearing these foilish covered glasses will allow all the Chinese to stare safely for about an hour and a half at the slowly diminishing and reappearing sun. This definately beats the "pinhole in a cardboard box top" method that I remember from my childhood.
I think that there was actually a full or almost-full eclipse when I was in kindergarten or first grade in the US. I'm not sure and I'm too tired to look it up... Anyway, all I remember from it was a SEVERE distrust in the people who told me I'd go blind from looking at the sun ("But I stare at the sun all the time....like this!!" "NO LUCY!!!"), and the annoyance of looking at the shadow of a pin hole in a shoebox lid waning and waxing when we could've just looked up and seen the thing for real.
Anyway, I'll be teaching tomorrow morning when it hits, but I'm sure such a momentous occasion will call for a break from classes....so I'll be sure to take pictures of the fun. For now, pray for our retinas and sanity as we experience TOTAL ECLIPSE 09!!!!!
1 comment:
We got an awesome eclipse here in May of 1984. It passed between Baton Rouge and New Orleans (closer to NO). I was at work that day, but was pregnant with Geoffrey and luckily had to leave work for an OB appointment. I was waiting for the doctor in that little room but there was a commotion outside. Hearing the nurses talk about the eclipse they were watching apparently caused the pregos to revolt and we also went outside to watch the eclipse. I made a make-shift eclipse viewer out of two pieces of paper, one with a hole in it. It was awesome! But just as incredible was the color of the light reflected in the sky both before and after the eclipse. It was an unusual, eerie dark blue gray color that I've only seen during eclipses.
http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEgoogle/SEgoogle1951/SE1984May30Agoogle.html
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