European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites
Darmstadt, Germany

Contact:
Media Relations, +49 6151 807 839

March 23, 2006

Solar Eclipses seen by Satellite

On 29 March, the shadow of the moon will cross the Earth, resulting in a
partial eclipse for most parts of Northern Europe.

For those of you interested in seeing more, Turkey or Northern Africa
will be the place to go! In Germany the eclipse will -- hopefully -- be
viewable between 11:40 in Southern Germany and 11:55 in Northern Germany
with a black moon starting to cover the South Western rim of the sun.

An alternative is of course to follow the eclipse by satellite --
EUMETSAT has made a loop of the March 2006 eclipse he

* Animation (AVI, 2314 KB
http://www.eumetsat.int/groups/ops/documents/multimedia/avi_eclipse_2006_29_03.avi)
of the eclipse, from 29 March 2006, 07:00 to 11:45 UTC. We see how the
shadow of the Moon sweeps over the Atlantic Ocean, crosses the Sahara
and over Turkey. The track of the Moon's shadow across Earth's surface
is called the path of totality. It is typically around 16,000 kilometres
long but only 160 kilometres or so wide. In order to see the Sun totally
eclipsed by the Moon, you must be in the path of totality.

* Shadow of the moon crossing Turkey on 29 March at 10:45 UTC (JPG, 139
KB
http://www.eumetsat.int/groups/public/documents/image/img_jpg_homepage_eclipse01.jpg).

* Global view of the eclipse, from MSG channel 2 (VIS0.8) (JPG, 540 KB
http://www.eumetsat.int/groups/ops/documents/image/img_jpg_eclipse_062903_ch2_big.jpg).
The eclipse is over Sahara, 29 March 2006, 09:45 UTC.

* The eclipse seen from MSGs High Resolution Visible channel (JPG, 426
KB
http://www.eumetsat.int/groups/ops/documents/image/img_jpg_hrv_eclipse_1268x861.jpg).
The eclipse is over Sahara, 29 March 2006, 09:45 UTC.

EUMETSAT's image gallery
[http://www.eumetsat.int/idcplg?IdcService=SS_GET_PAGE&nodeId=95&l=en]
contains several examples of the moon's shadow on the earth's surface
captured during solar eclipses, including the total eclipse that
occurred in August 1999 over Europe and of 4 December 2002 over the
southern part of the Indian Ocean.

For more information on how satellite observations provide the
scientific community with data on this phenomenon, the link below will
take you to the webpages of Kees Floor, Dutch meteorological specialist
and writer, who has provided a comprehensive overview on the eclipse
phenomenon using EUMETSAT (and other!) satellite imagery:
http://www.keesfloor.nl/artikelen/ze...sat/engels.htm