“I look up.  Incredible! It is the eye of God.  A perfectly black disk, ringed with bright spiky streamers that stretch out in all directions.” J. Zirker

The diamond ring effect seen at the suns just starts to emerge from behind the moon.

“Some people see a partial eclipse and wonder why others talk so much about a total eclipse. 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 an opera; in both cases, you have missed the main event.”  J. Pasachoff

Solar prominences visible during the total eclipse.

During a total solar eclipse, you can see things that cannot be seen at any other time.  The solar prominences shown above are one dramatic example. A photo cannot do justice to the experience of seeing the living, fire breathing sun with your own eyes.  Part of the magic of the eclipse is that you do not need any special equipment to view the sun during totality, although a pair of binoculars enhance the experience.  (CAUTION: AT ANY OTHER TIME YOU DO HAVE TO HAVE SPECIAL EQUIPMENT TO AVOID EYE DAMAGE; NEVER LOOK DIRECTLY AT THE SUN AT ANY TIME OTHER THAN DURING A TOTAL ECLIPSE WHEN THE DISK OF THE SUN IS COMPLETELY BLOCKED BY THE MOON). In fact, you don’t even have to see to experience part of the phenomena.  You can sense it getting darker and cooler, you can hear the birds start to sing as they would at dusk and the quiet that comes with totality, you can feel the collective awe that comes over a crowd as totatity hits.  Come experience it yourself.

For those of you who want to know more about eclipses, there are an abundance of useful and interesting web sites on solar eclipses in general and on the 2006 eclipse in particular.   Here are a couple of good places to start.

• NASA’s eclipse site
  This is the home page for NASA’s eclipse pages.  They have some of the most extensive and detailed information on past and future eclipses.
• International Astronomical Union’s eclipse site
  This is another site with a lots of technical information on eclipses.
• Kandilli Obervatory (Turkey) eclipse site
  This site has good technical information as well as useful links for the visitor to Turkey.
• Eclipse Chasers Web Ring
  This is a list of eclipse web sites, mostly put up by “eclipse chasing” individuals.
• Exploratium (updated February 10, 2006)
  This site shows you how to rig up a pair of binoculars on a tripod to make an excellent setup for safely viewing the partial and total phases of the eclipse.   If you are a birdwatcher and have a spotting scope on a tripod, that is  even better than binoculars for projecting an image of the sun onto a screen to view the sun.

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