Thesolar eclipse of 21 June 2020 appeared to Sri Lanka as a partial eclipse. The timing of this wasn't that great given that the area I live is under the monsoon season and there is absolutely no guarantee of clear skies. The day before the eclipse however, it was extremely sunny. But things got complicated when two different weather sites gave two completely different predictions for the day of the eclipse.
One way I try to mitigate for situations like this is to research earlier on what other locations I can be at. For the annular eclipse of December 2019 for example, I travelled inland to a location that was having relatively fair weather at the time but also a place from where I could move to two other locations about 200km away within a period of about 4 hours. It is little bit weird for a non-astronomer/non-observer to see what the fuss is all about, but here's the reality; if you are in Sri Lanka, your next chances of seeing a solar eclipse for the next decade are:
- 25th Oct 2022
- 02nd Aug 2027
- a tiny sliver of a chance 0on 22nd Jul 2028
So if you are interested in the subject, it is in fact a big deal.
Luckily for me, everything worked out very well. I was able to cover the entire 2h 50m of the solar eclipse at 10 min interval without much trouble. The trouble of course was in selecting the exact spot; a single person with a camera and a car looks very suspicious specially given the security circumstances we had as a country, and then of course, braving the heat for nearly 3hrs.
The result of course is, quite satisfying :)
Hope you guys enjoyed it too. There's likely to be a few more posts on this eclipse on why we saw it as a partial when others saw it as an annular as well as how I got around creating the montage above.
Comments
Post a Comment