YM COLUMN ARCHIVE

August 5, 2009

Total solar eclipse-----being in the midst of space-----

A few minutes of total solar eclipse that I experienced onboard Pacific Venus on July 22, 2009 were marvelous and mysterious time I had ever felt in my total life. I dare say it may be only comparable with aurora that I saw for the first time at Andoya Rocket Range in Norway. No sooner than a dim light appeared far beyond the horizon, it expanded wide and far all over the sky like millions of midget lamps lighted to spread out in an instant moment, whose one corner of the sky started waving flickered like a curtain in a wind. Yes, it was a time passing like a dream.

A myriad particles flying along magnetic field lines at ultra high velocity far from the tail of the earth colliding with the particles of atmosphere causes to light up the sky. I only came to realize after my excitement cooled down in passing of some time that yes indeed, they were midget lamps for sure. When I got back to Japan to have proudly showed my pictures of aurora to my friends, they almost reacted in the same way, “Wow, how beautiful! Latest cameras really work a good job.” Maybe, my friend was right, for what I did was only to set camera on a tripod for full exposure until to click the shutter in twenty seconds.

And now it is solar eclipse this time. People were densely gathering on deck while the sun was beginning to eclipse by inches. I devised to produce “sunbeams streaming through leaves” effect together with passengers near me and took pictures of the effect images, while so doing though I was imagining of the moon passing in front of the sun. We can certainly see the sun “eaten up” by something but can’t witness what’s eating the sun except by our mind’s eye.

Meanwhile my thought was stirred on the moon three hundred eighty thousand kilometers away to which imaginary direction I was staring. In comparison to the distance between my eyes and the moon, how small the “eating sun” moon is! Its diameter is only three thousand five hundred kilometers. The long-thin shadow of circular cone with over a hundred times as high as the base diameter is reaching out toward us at this very moment and that the very source of creating shadow is far beyond one hundred and fifty million kilometers away. Having imagined gigantic scale of circular cone shadow in my mind, I was just standing stunned and motionless having been aware of my positioning at the end point of the long-thin cone shadow by space-scale.

Time of the second contact was nearing every second. The clouds afloat a little far suddenly began to take dark colors. Then the diamond ring showed up magnificent shining. “Wow!” and “Ohh!” were heard everywhere on deck, which was followed by the total eclipsing a couple of seconds later. Deck calmed down as if in eternal silence. Breathless prevail all over. Serene hush time was passing by.

“Ahh!” was cheered like sigh, to which I took off my eclipse glasses to have found everyone was looking around at three hundred and sixty degrees horizon. Out there was spreading beautiful reddening sky of sunset glow. I never knew there was such a big-scaled fantastic “sunset” in this world. While clouds near above us were all dark, cloudless air space beyond was shining bright with streaming light of madder red. I was taken in beautiful scenery for a while to have heard the voices, “We can see Venus”.

To tell the truth, I was waiting for this moment in covert, when Venus, eclipsed sun and Mercury being arrayed on a straight line in midday sky. It must be Sirius in the southern sky forming a regular triangle with sun and Venus. Eventually there became visible to my eyes getting used to the darkness, Betelgeuse between Sirius and Venus; to its southwest was Rigel; to the north of Venus was Capella. Regrettably, poor visibility of my eyes could not catch Orion’s Belt nor Aldebaran. I hurried to shift my eyes down to the horizon in expectation of Canopus rising at about ten and some degrees above the horizon. I searched for it as hard as I could but couldn’t. It was too bad.

Had I ever tried to search for the stars so hurriedly in such a hard effort? With my eyes working hard and wide open, time on a ship went by like a dream, which I really felt for the first time in a long-long while. When people’s expectation for the third contact began to grow onboard, yes there came diamond ring with total eclipsed corona behind; no sooner corona was clearly seen than it disappeared in seconds having left diamond ring taking clear shape in bright coloration and then went into time zone of partial eclipse again.

I don’t feel like talking about the time that elapsed in an uncertain sense of satisfaction or drowsy feeling after the eclipse was over. Time immediately after the eclipse flowed to pass slowly on a normal day pace as compared with the condensed time of six minutes of total eclipse. I’m sure I shall recall that day many times in future, of which tale, however, I feel sorry now to put it into words.

I welcome your opinions on this column to the following E-mail address.
matogawa@planetary.or.jp

Copyright (c) 2000 The Planetary Society of Japan. All rights reserved