As 22 July draws nearer, interest in that day’s total solar eclipse is growing. The New York Times travel section weighed in on Sunday. Even the flight tracking service FareCompare.com recently mentioned it.
Xinhua modestly headlines, Scientists: China the best place to observe longest solar eclipse in 2,000 years. In terms of easy-to-reach destinations, they’re surely right; The biggest world city near totality’s path is Shanghai, with a blizzard of buses likely to head a short ride south to the center line. We’ve posted samples of the various travel packages on offer here, but by now, most of those tours will be filling up.
We’ll be on hand for our third total solar eclipse (1999 in Hungary, 2006 in Cappadocia), but we’ll travel to Mt. Emei, or Emei Shan, in Szechuan province south of Chengdu. On the one hand, totality is slightly shorter than to the east on the coast. On the other, at Emei Shan’s 10,167 foot peak (3,099 meters), we have a fair shot at escaping fog, mist & ground haze.
With a maximum totality off the coast of Japan of 6:39, this eclipse is nearly as long as they get, and by far the longest in any of our remaining lifetimes. The science is a little daunting, but according to the textbook Astronomy Today, “Because the (moon’s) shadow sweeps across Earth’s surface at over 1700 kilometers per hour, the duration of a total eclipse at any given point on our planet can never exceed 7.5 minutes.”
The book Totality elaborates on the rarity of the event:
- “… only a tiny fraction of people, about one in 10,000, have witnessed a total solar eclipse.” And
- “On the average, your house will be visited by a total eclipse of the Sun only once in about 375 years.”
See how soon your house can expect a visit with this map.
(Eclipse photo from the 1999 total solar eclipse as seen at Lake Balaton, Hungary. See more in the Hungary Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.)
Looking forward to seeing this, although I'm not sure how good of a view we will have from Australia.
Posted by: adventure travel | 22 May 2009 at 12:41 AM