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Created on Saturday, 18 July 2009 11:41
M/S Paul Gauguin is on a special cruise that I would refer as one remarkable and very rare cruise – chasing the July 2009 Total Solar Eclipse. Many people would travel to remote locations just to observe this natural phenomenon to take place and this is where the M/S Paul Gauguin is heading this time – chasing the solar eclipse. The M/S Paul Gauguin will sail to the solar eclipse point much closer to Suwarrow Island at Lat. 10°17.0″S, Long. 164°10.6″W in which solar eclipse totality at 04:17 UTC will last for 3 minutes and 27 seconds. After performing my navigational watch at the bridge this afternoon, I took the chance to drop by at the Grand Salon and listen to the enrichment presentation – “The Dance of the Sun and Moon,” presented by Astronomer Owen Gingerich. It was an interesting talk explaining how the sun and moon together display its most awesome spectacles. The moon’s shadow will first touch the Earth at 00:53UTC, at sunrise in India, and crosses through Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar and China. After leaving mainland Asia, the path crosses Japan's Ryukyu Islands and curves southeast through the Pacific Ocean. A partial eclipse can be observed in most of eastern Asia, Indonesia, and the Pacific Ocean.
The instant of greatest eclipse will be at 2:35:19 UTC and will be the longest to occur in the 21st century with totality lasting 6 minutes and 39 seconds at the point of greatest eclipse located at the Pacific Ocean at Latitude 24°12′36″N, Longitude 144°06′24″E.This will take place over open ocean with no land in sight.
The second half of the eclipse path crosses nothing but ocean and few tiny islands and coral atolls among the Marshall Islands and Kiribati. Finally, the total solar eclipse will end at 04:18 UTC, at sunset about 980NM northwest of Tahiti.
Photo and Eclipse Data: Eclipse Predictions by Fred Espenak, NASA's GSFC
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