Eastern U.S. to See Partial Solar Eclipse Nov. 3

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., For people in the eastern United States, the sun will rise half covered by the moon on Sunday morning, November 3, and the partial eclipse will last about 3/4 of an hour.  Jay Pasachoff, Field Memorial Professor of Astronomy at Williams College and chair of the International Astronomical Union’s Working Group on Eclipses, advises that people able to see very low on the eastern horizon and having suitable filters in hand would enjoy the event.

A total solar eclipse will sweep across Africa about two hours later on that Sunday, when it will be afternoon, six hours later, in west Africa.  After starting in the Atlantic, the shadow of the moon will reach Gabon, where Pasachoff and colleagues will observe totality, with the support of a research grant from the Committee for Research and Exploration of the National Geographic Society.

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The eclipse will then continue across Africa through the Congos until it passes through northern Uganda, and northern Kenya, ending in southern Ethiopia and Somalia.  The path of totality, when the bright everyday surface of the sun is entirely covered by the moon, will cross the middle of Gabon.  Totality, weather permitting, in the middle of Gabon will be about 1 minute long, compared with only about 10 seconds long in northern Kenya.

Only partial phases of the eclipse will be visible in the U.S., in southern Europe (Spain, lower Italy, and Greece) and throughout the rest of Gabon, and through almost all of Africa (except for the southernmost tip).

Since the Sun’s everyday surface is too bright to look at safely, to safely look at the partial phases people will have to make a simple “pinhole camera” (merely a 3 mm or so hole in a piece of paper that is used to project the sun onto another piece of paper, and then you look at that second paper with the sun behind you) or else get special filters—almost a million times darker than ordinary sunglasses–made to be safe for observing the sun.

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In the United States, the partial eclipse will be visible at sunrise, 6:30 a.m. on that day in the eastern standard timezone. (Earlier that morning, daylight saving time will end at 2 a.m.)  The sun’s diameter will be over 50 percent covered by the silhouette of the moon at sunrise in Boston and New York, and 47 percent covered in Washington, D.C., and Miami.  By about 45 minutes later, when the eclipse is about 8 degrees high in the sky (about four fingers high at the end of your outstretched arm), only a tiny bit of the sun would be covered by the moon’s silhouette.  So viewers will really want to look between sunrise and about a half hour later, when the sun is only about two fingers high on the east-southeast horizon.  And viewers will need a true horizon level with them, not encumbered by even low, distant buildings, hills, or mountains.

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Quelle: Williams College

Museveni added that some other people want to invade national parks to grow malakwang, a local vegetable, which is not acceptable.

Moments earlier, he had laid the foundation for the information and tourism centre in Pakwach town council and later commissioned the eclipse monument at the school.

Given the rigorous searches that people were subjected to, the president apologised to foreign viewers for the heightened security measures, saying it was meant to combat terrorism. “Terrorists can use the cover tourism to cause harm to the country,” he said.

 

The President warned of a host of social dangers and vices such as drug trafficking, child labour and prostitution that can come along with tourism. “We must have mechanisms to guard against these vices,” he said.