The Exploratorium’s eclipse expedition team has chased its fair share of total solar eclipses—seven so far—Webcasting these magnificent events to people around the world. While we won’t be traveling to this year’s eclipse, we plan to cover the total solar eclipse in July 2010. For this year, we’re providing links to other eclipse Web sites, and we’ll direct you to live Webcasts or broadcasts of the eclipse. We'll keep adding information, so check back here as the date approaches. On this site, you can watch archived Webcasts of previous eclipses, learn how to view an eclipse, read feature stories about eclipses, and much more!
The path of totality
At sunrise on July 22, 2009, (the evening of July 21 PDT), the moon’s umbra—the cone-shaped part of the moon’s shadow—will fall on India’s Gulf of Khambhat. The shadow will sweep across Asia and the South Pacific before leaving the earth near the Marshall Islands about 3½ hours later. The path of totality will cover a distance of approximately 9,500 miles (15,200 km). The maximum duration of totality is an exceptionally long 6 minutes and 39 seconds, which will come while the shadow is over the Pacific.
Webcasts
Grupo Saros (China - Wuhan) http://www.saros.org/index.htmlEclipse City (China - Shanghai) http://www.eclipse-tv.com/
Live! Eclipse 2009 (Japan) http://www.live-eclipse.org/
SEMS-Sun Earth Moon Systems (University of North Dakota): http://sems1.cs.und.edu/~sems/index.php
For more information
NASA Eclipse Website: http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse.htmlMr. Eclipse: http://www.mreclipse.com/MrEclipse.html
Eclipse Chaser: http://www.eclipsechaser.com/
World Map of Future Eclipses: http://www.exploratorium.edu/eclipse/future.html
Date and Time Help: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html
Eclipse Chasers
Features Exploratorium senior physicist Paul Doherty, the happy veteran of many eclipse chases, and showcases the 1900 eclipse photography technique of Charles Burckhalter, the first director of the Chabot Space and Science Center.