In the shadow of the upcoming Great American Solar Eclipse, I here recall my three encounters with the moon, blocking our sun.
1.) My first solar eclipse was back back in the summer of 1990, June 22 to be more exact, in my early 20's, when I travelled with my father from Sweden almost to the Russian border in Joenssuu, Finland, to watch a total.
We traveled nonstop for 14 hours, both by boat and by car, and got there just in time to experience the deep twilight during the totality, at 04:52 in the morning and midnight sun. We manage to catch a glimpse of it just as the sun took a peak through the clouds. The birds stopped singing and the crowd that had gathered at a football field stopped talking. Even the wind stopped! It was dead calm and no one said a word until the real totality began and a loud "Wow!" could be heard among us sun gazers. Neither of us two had any solar eclipse glasses or shades with us so we couldn't watch directly at the sun, but the mere experience itself was really worth the long journey!
The shadow, white band on the enclosed map, was 240 km wide as it crossed Finland's south-eastern parts.
2.) My second eclipse was a partial, some fifteen years ago or so, when I was at work. Unfortunately I didn't have proper eclipse glasses with me so I didn't see much. On the other side it wasn't much to see either as not much of the sun was blocked from our part of the world. So if you didn't know what was going on you couldn't tell what was happening, as it didn't get any darker at all.
3.) My third and most recent eclipse was also a partial (but this time a much greater part), just a few years ago here in Sweden, when I was fortunate to be able to watch it from work too, now with proper solar eclipse shades this time.
As this occurred during work hours I didn't have time to prepare any photo equipments so I couldn't take any pictures of it. Luckily this was a sunny day too and the sun had just started to shine through one of the work windows and I could see the moon cover a large bit of the sun, at maximum. The sun looked just like a crescent moon, but much much brighter. That was a pretty cool experience too!
Happy solar eclipse viewing!
/Christofer Döss, Sweden
E D I T (P S 1)
4.) Today's Partial Solar Eclipse, 2018-08-11, over Sweden (up to the North Pole), is my 4th Solar Eclipse - and my 1st that I have managed to get shots of!
As with my second one this Eclipse was also just covered by only a small part of the moon, from our part of Sweden, so you couldn't tell what was happening if you didn't know what was actually going on.
E D I T (P S 2)
As this occurred during work hours I didn't have time to prepare any photo equipments so I couldn't take any pictures of it. Luckily this was a sunny day too and the sun had just started to shine through one of the work windows and I could see the moon cover a large bit of the sun, at maximum. The sun looked just like a crescent moon, but much much brighter. That was a pretty cool experience too!
Read more about the August 21, 2017, Great American Eclipse here:
- https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov
If you have twitter you can follow my space news account @spaceflashnews there.
If you have twitter you can follow my space news account @spaceflashnews there.
Happy solar eclipse viewing!
/Christofer Döss, Sweden
E D I T (P S 1)
4.) Today's Partial Solar Eclipse, 2018-08-11, over Sweden (up to the North Pole), is my 4th Solar Eclipse - and my 1st that I have managed to get shots of!
As with my second one this Eclipse was also just covered by only a small part of the moon, from our part of Sweden, so you couldn't tell what was happening if you didn't know what was actually going on.
E D I T (P S 2)
A Twitter comment I made about this, illustrated with one of these photos, rendered in a post in an August 12 Space.com article (<--- click="" link="" p="" there="">
"...A little farther north in Sweden, photographer Christofer Döss of Spaceflash News tweeted one of his photos of the eclipse at Petricca. 'The moon took a little bit bigger bite out of the sun up here in Sweden' Spaceflash News tweeted. In northern Sweden, where he captured the photo, the moon was covering about 15 percent of the sun's disk."
5.) My fifths solar eclipse and the second Partial Solar Eclipse of 2022 was visible today, October 25th, from most of Europe, northern Africa, the Middle East, and western parts of Asia...
For example, in Stockholm, Sweden, the partial solar eclipse began at 11:08, reached maximum (46% covered by the moon) at 12:10-12:16 and ended at 13:23.
At maximum there were indeed heavy clouds here in Sweden, during the Partial Solar Eclipse. However one could actually tell it turned darker outside, when the Sun was 46% covered by the moon.
With the maximum over and 20 minutes to the end of the #PartialSolarEclipse, the heavy clouds turned much brighter again, than under max.
So, even if I couldn't get to see the actual eclipse through the clouds, I could see the darker-brighter effects of it. That makes it my fifths (5!) solar eclipse I have watched during my 52 year old life - which is not very rare, but it's not that usual either!
The next upcoming Solar Eclipses, visible from Sweden (and the rest of Europe) will be in...
- 2025-03-29: Partial, seen from much of Europe, North of Asia, North/West Africa, much of North America, Atlantic and Arctic.
- 2026-08-12: Total, seen from Europe, North/East Asia, North/West Africa, much of North America, Pacific, Atlantic and Arctic.
- 2027-08-02: Total, seen from South/West Europe, South/West Asia, much of Africa, East and North America, Atlantic and Indian Ocean.
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