Black Sun Over China July 22nd

SPACEPORTS: A Total Solar Eclipse of the sun will occur on Wednesday, July 22,2009 with a magnitude of 1.080 that will be visible from a narrow corridor through Hangzhou and Shanghai, China where this Blogger is set to observe with expert astronomers. Here is a video of the solar eclipse path along the Earth.

A total eclipse occurs when the Sun is completely obscured by the Moon. The intensely bright disk of the Sun is replaced by the dark silhouette of the Moon, and the much fainter corona is visible. During any one eclipse, totality is visible only from at most a narrow track on the surface of the Earth and again this year it runs through the People's Republic of China.

This solar eclipse is the longest total solar eclipse that will occur in the twenty-first century, and will not be surpassed in duration until June 13, 2132. Totality will last for up to 6 minutes and 39 seconds. There will be several sites on the Internet to view the Total Solar Eclipse LIVE. Here is one from China and another will be the San Francisco Exploratorium. Here is a video example of the 2008 China eclipse.

In the meanwhile, July blog posts will not resume until July 25th upon return from China. Linked is an eclipse music video. Please visit the SpaceportsBlog again!