![]() ![]() This heavenly diamond quickly grows into a band of several jewels which merge together to form the returning crescent Sun. The west is brightening while in the east the darkness is deepening and descending toward the horizon.Ībove you, prominences appear at the western edge of the Moon. Yet around you at the horizon is a warning that totality is drawing to an end. Now, at the midpoint in totality, the corona stands out most clearly, its shape and extent never quite the same from one eclipse to another.Īnd only the eye can do the corona justice, its special pattern of faint wisps and spikes on this day never seen before and never to be seen again. Looking across the landscape at the horizon in all directions, you see beyond the shadow to where the eclipse is not total, an eerie twilight of orange and yellow.įrom this light beyond the darkness which envelops you comes an inexorable sense that time is limited.Ģ006 Total Solar Eclipse A composite image reveals subtle structure in the Sun's corona. It is dark enough to see Venus and Mercury and whichever of the brightest planets and stars happen to be close to the Sun's position and above the horizon. You are standing in the shadow of the Moon. They are always a surprise, each unique in shape and size, different yesterday and tomorrow from what they are at this special moment. These are the prominences, giant clouds of hot gas in the Sun's lower atmosphere. Small but vibrant reddish features stand at the eastern rim of the Moon's disk, contrasting vividly with the white of the corona and the black where the Sun is hidden. Where the Sun once stood, there is a black disk in the sky, outlined by the soft pearly white glow of the corona, about the brightness of a Full Moon. The corona-the most striking and unexpected of all the features of a total eclipse-is emerging.Īlmost instantaneously, the incredibly thin crescent Sunįragments into a series of brilliant beads and short arcs which dwindle and vanish in rapid succession.Īnd now, there is only one bead, set like a single dazzling diamond in a ring."īut its penetrating brilliance rapidly fades as if it were sucked into an abyss. It is the dark limb of the Moon, framed by a white opalescent glow which creates a halo around the darkened Sun. Opposite the crescent, a ghostly round silhouette looms into view. The ends of the bare sliver of the Sun break into individual points of intense white light-Baily's Beads-the last rays of sunlight passing through the deepest lunar valleys. The darkening sky continues to close in around the Sun, faster, engulfing it.Ģ019 Diamond Ring Effect The "diamong ring" effect is seen just before totality begins. The crescent Sun is now a blazing white sliver, like a welder's torch. You are already seeing through the Moon's narrow shadow to the resurgent sunlight beyond. It builds like a massive storm, but in utter silence, with no rumble of distant thunder.Īnd now the darkness begins to float up above the horizon, revealing a yellow or orange twilight beneath. The darkness in the west is very noticeable and gathering strength, a dark amorphous form rising upward and spreading out along the western horizon. The Sun does not fill the heavens with brightness anymore. The darkness of the sky begins to close in around the Sun. The Sun, a narrowing crescent, is still fiercely bright, but the blueness of the sky has deepened into blue-gray or violet. Less than fifteen minutes until totality. Is happening now-and that it is beyond normal human experience. With about a quarter hour left until totality, the western sky is now darker than the east, regardless of where the Sun is in the sky.Įven if you have never seen a total eclipse of the Sun before, you know that something amazing is going to happen, Over the next 10 to 15 minutes, the landscape takes on a steely gray metallic cast. On the ground around you the light is beginning to diminish. The sky is still bright, but the blue is a little duller. ![]() Now, gradually at first, then faster and faster, extraordinary things begin to happen. Still, things proceed leisurely for the first half hour or so, until the Sun is more than half covered. Nothing but that nick portends anything out of the ordinary.īut as the nick becomes a gouge in the face of the Sun, a sense of anticipation begins. The eye detects no difference in the amount of sunlight. In both cases, you have missed the main event."Ī tiny nick appears on the western side of the Sun. Seeing a partial eclipse and saying that you have seen an eclipse is like standing outside an opera house and saying that you have seen the opera "Some people see a partial eclipse and wonder why others talk so much about a total eclipse. 2017 Total Solar Eclipse This sequence shows the entire eclipse from start to finish. ![]()
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