Pollen corona during total eclipse

A pollen corona was seen by several observers at the Southern coast of Turkey during the total solar eclipse of 29th March 2006. This nice picture taken by Emma Herranen shows the atmospheric pollen corona with three colour segments only a few seconds before the second contact, as illuminated by the diamond ring phenomenon. The inner parts of the solar corona are seen as a white circle around the Moon.

Shadows during the annular eclipse

Günther Können took these pictures in Madrid during the annular eclipse of 3rd Oct 2005. They are solar images projected onto three mutually perpendicular surfaces: one horizontal and two vertical. During the annular phase (right hand image) the solar images were ellipses, with their long axes oriented in different directions on the two walls and the steps and ground. This was not unexpected. However, in the picture showing the pre-annular phase, one notices that the sun crescents on the ground and steps comprised the more pointed part of the ellipse, whereas on the walls they are the more rounded part of the ellipse. The key is in the third picture, where the shadow of the roof overhang kinks from one projecting plane to the other. In hindsight, all of this is understandable, but I have never seen a comment on this ‘solar image puzzle’.

Twilight Colours during the total Sun Eclipse

A total Sun eclipse occured on 29th March 2006. The weather was very good in all southern Turkey. The sequence photo was taken by Jukka Ruoskanen on a beach close to the town called Side in Turkey. Few minutes before totality high clouds came, and a halo was seen. The halo, of course, vanished with the sunlight and reappeared again after the total phase – the high clouds responsible for the halo can be seen in some of the photos. The sky colours were truly amazing with deep bluish hue towards the zenith and a great “sunset-like” appearence all over the horizon. The other noteworthy points were a significant temperature drop and the peculiar light some minutes before second contact. At that time the shadows were really sharp too.

The second (16 mm) wide-angle picture of the sky during the totality of the 2006 eclipse is taken by Günther Können in Colakli near Side at the south coast of Turkey, straight on the central line. The horizontal field of view is 135 degrees. At the 4 o’clock position fron the overexposed corona, Venus is visible. The limiting magnitude during totality is +3, about the same as during twiligt with the sun 7 degrees below horizon. The light of the sky occurs because of leaking of light via the horizon, from regions where the sun is not completely eclipsed.