Physics – Physics Education
Scientific paper
Nov 1999
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1999phyed..34..334.&link_type=abstract
Physics Education, Volume 34, Issue 6, pp. 334 (1999).
Physics
Physics Education
Scientific paper
The total solar eclipse of 1999 will no doubt have left an impression on millions of people. Members of the Editorial Board for Physics Education share some of their feelings and memories of the event.
Simon Carson writes:
My children and I were at home in Driffield, East Yorkshire, on said day. Out we went in the back garden with our big refracting telescope and eight-year-old James's Early Learning Centre telescope (plastic, cheap and jolly good for the price!) and our special glasses.
Come the witching hour, we trained our telescopes, with white card behind them, on the Sun. Gradually we saw the Moon's shadow edge across the Sun.
As James said, `It went cold and dark and the picture on the card looked like a thin glowing line'. It was surprisingly impressive given the distance from totality. The most remarkable effect was the drop in temperature and the fact that our bright sunny mid-morning in August became more like a chilly autumn dusk. Katharine, age 6, remembers performing cartwheels in the dark!
Bob Kibble writes:
My partner Jean, and I, holidayed in Trier, Germany, just outside the path of totality. On the big day we awoke to rain and clouds, as did most of central Europe. The trusty motorbike, laden with a picnic and photographic gear, took us south into France. We stopped just outside Metz at a service station along with dozens of like-minded but damp and dismal onlookers. Cloud cover was layered with darker rain-bearing cloud drifting at the lowest level. Mobile phone links confirmed that it was raining in Paris, Dijon and Munich. We decided to settle for the event - at least there was a shop and `facilities'. We were joined by a group of bikers, two of whom had travelled 480 km from Denmark that very morning.
The shifting cloud cover offered tantalising glimpses of the partial phase as the light level fell. There was nothing we could do but put our faith in the weather. Now you see it, now you don't. As darkness fell and the temperature likewise the strangest thing happened. Just as totality approached the cloud above seemed to thin out, enabling us to see the whole event. We watched in amazement as the last thin bright patch disappeared. There were cheers, horns sounding and applause as the full spectacle was revealed before us - two full minutes of totality. I took photographs through a 600 mm mirror lens, cursing the instability of my flimsy tripod but able to see prominences in some detail. Despite my forward planning the 36 exposure film ran out just as last contact appeared. The excitement of the event prevented any serious, logical and measured photography. I just fired away. As soon as last contact had passed, the clouds reformed and neither Sun nor Moon were seen again until later that afternoon. We had witnessed what is apparently known as the `Red Sea effect' and is caused by the localized cooling due to the umbral shadow `punching' a hole in the cloud cover.
The event left us speechless, moved and tearful. Words seemed so inadequate. I had given a number of presentations leading up to this event but nothing could have prepared me for the experience of totality. Darkness came upon us so quickly that we were taken by surprise. Looking up above our heads meant that few of us had noticed the horizon. Friends who were not so lucky with the weather remarked on the beauty of the illuminated horizon. For us it was the nearest thing to a miracle we had ever seen. Roll on 2001!
Helen Reynolds writes:
My memory of the eclipse will be of lying in a field on a cliff in France staring out to sea. No-one prepares you for the moment of totality; the hairs on the back of your neck literally stand on end. This is not normal. The speed with which darkness falls is frightening. It is inconceivable that minutes ago there was 95%+ coverage of the Sun - the Moon seemed to have no effect and then, suddenly in all senses of the word, darkness literally falls from the sky. The sounds are unreal and the colours are nothing you have seen before. The calls and cries of the children are muted, cameras click but the sound is dulled. There seem to be bands of colours falling from the sky onto the horizon, pinks and a hint of that colour we call indigo. For once you do not try to work out why this is happening; there is so little time to soak up the moment before it is gone. The fastest two minutes of my life to date.
Jill Membrey writes:
I have to admit to a somewhat disappointing Eclipse experience! I had made the decision early on to travel down to Plymouth from Bristol, so as to be in the path of totality and share the event `at home' with my mother. The morning of 11 August dawned bright and we were eager with anticipation, but sadly the cloud thickened and deepened as the morning progressed. By 11 am the cloud cover was so thick that there was no indication of the Sun's position at all, let alone any of the phases. We had to resort to the television screen to find out what was actually going on. It was also difficult to tell whether the darkness was due to the normal Plymouth weather or to some other factor. However, by 11.12 it was sufficiently dark outside for us to trigger the security light when we went into the garden!
I was quite amazed at how quickly the sky lightened afterwards, although we still never got a glimpse of the Sun. In fact I never saw any sunshine until I returned to Bristol that evening, and then heard my husband gloat over his experience of the (almost) total eclipse witnessed between the broken clouds over his office. Just typical! I knew I should have stayed in Bristol...
Jonathan Allday writes:
I went with my wife Carolyn on a package tour to Paris to see the eclipse. On the day itself we were taken by coach to a park just outside Rheims to see the totality. Apparently our tour company shifted 6000 people that day. As we were making our way to the park the clouds would open occasionally to give us a view of the partial phase. The traffic was heavy and we were far from sure that we would make it in time. I was fretting and weighing up trying to convince the driver to stop at any point to let us out at the moment of totality. However, we made it and the park was a wonderful vantage point.
I will never forget the quiet that came over this huge park with thousands of people in it as totality came. I remember looking across the lake and seeing camera flashes going off as the darkness descended. Periodic announcements over the PA system kept track of what was happening and sensibly gave warnings about how to view the eclipse. I had sworn that I would not take any pictures, figuring that by the time I had sorted out exposures the eclipse would be over. As it turned out the clouds were light so that the totality could be viewed through them and picture taking was easy. Consequently I was lying on my back staring through the camera lens and firing off photographs when the orange tinted shadow edge arrived over the hills. I missed it. Totality itself was glimpsed along with the corona through hazy clouds but that was a wonderful sight. Conclusions - next time I want to see it with no clouds.
Liz Whitelegg writes:
I'd been preparing for eclipse day for a whole 12 months by reading articles and going to talks about the eclipse, buying the special glasses at the ASE annual meeting, talking to eclipse experts etc. I even secured accommodation in some `friends' holiday home in Cornwall by lending a hand in the restoration process the year before! Having spent the very same week in Cornwall in '98 when it was hot and sunny all week, I was convinced that the heavens would shine on us and we'd get a spectacular totality. However, it was not to be. The weather forecast was for cloud cover and showers - but the day before the event was lovely and sunny, so who believes in weather forecasts anyway? But as we scanned the sky on awakening on 11 August, it seems the Met Office had got it right for once.
We stuck to our plan anyway and caught the local train from St Ives to Lelant in order to climb to the highest point for miles around - Trencrom hill where (on a clear
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