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sartresue
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23 Jul 2009, 11:09 am

Longest eclipse will not be seen again for 300 years!

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Did any WPers see this? the best viewing was in India and China, according to news reports.

Total solar eclipses always remind me of an artist's conception of a black hole, with the corona as the horizon.

I saw a partial one 15 years ago, around the early part of June, 1994. I remember seeing both lunar and solar eclipses as a child.


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Aoi
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23 Jul 2009, 3:14 pm

I wish I'd been able to see it. But I live in the U.S. I've got to check when then next eclipse will be in my neighborhood, or make arrangements to travel to see one.



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30 Jul 2009, 8:47 am

I missed it. I will just have to wait for the next one. :D



Locustman
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30 Jul 2009, 10:37 am

I watched the 1999 one - ten years ago to this very day, funnily enough - from a beach near Newquay in Cornwall. Definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience.



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30 Jul 2009, 5:35 pm

I wish I'd been able to travel halfway around the world to see it.

- The next solar eclipse in the U.S. wil be on May 20, 2012 (it will be an annular and not total eclipse; duration about 5 min and 46 sec).
- The next total solar eclipse in the U.S. will be on August 21 2017 (area of greatest eclipse near Kentucky-Tennessee border; duration 2 m 40 sec)

The length of the recent eclipse was very impressive, since an eclipse cannot be longer than 7 m 31 sec.
The next longest eclipse of the 21st century won't be until August 2, 2027 (6 m 23 sec). It will start in the Atlantic, then work its way across the Mediterranean southward, ending in Yemen.

I'm going to have to make the most of the 2012 and 2017 eclipses.



ChangelingGirl
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31 Jul 2009, 12:12 pm

The last solar eclipse visible in the Netherlnads was in 1999. It was about 90% complete. I at the time had just enough vision to see it, but not enough to appreciate it, since to me it just looked like twilight at midday, which wasn't particularly interesting to me.