When the sun smiles

Apparently some religious leader is preaching that last Friday’s solar eclipse was a warning sent from God to the countries of Western Europe that were in its shadow. Much as I believe in God as creator of the universe and follow his Son Jesus Christ, I found that preacher’s comments a little disturbing.

Certainly the eclipse may evoke feelings of wonder, curiosity, humility or even fear – they are unusual, even if we do have a scientific explanation for them. And if we take the eclipse as an occasion to reflect on human fragility and mortality, all well and good. But a sign from God? Maybe. A specific message for a specific time and place? Too much like astrology for my liking, given that we can predict the next such event years in advance (2026 for a partial solar eclipse and 2090 for a total one visible from the UK, apparently. I haven’t done the calculations myself so I am taking this on trust.)

In the meantime here are a selection of our photos from last Friday, which we will update as and when any others are sent in.

 

nearly an hour after “first contact”

a bit of a smile

nearly gone

taken with a Pentax digital SLR, no special filters – only possible because the cloudiness was just right

Eclipse 2015

There are a number of sites with information (and usual warnings). This one HMNAO has an animation. Scoll down to a country and then a city of your choice for more information.

March 2015

Some naked-eye objects for March this year include an unusual solar eclipse. Unusual because it will actually be visible at the North Pole (as a partial eclipse). This will be on Friday 20th March and for the UK the start times are roughly 0825 to around 1040 (GMT). It is total in an area near the Faroe Islands. As ever, please do not look directly at the sun: either use special filters or back projection.

The simplest way is to use two pieces of card. One with a pin-prick-sized hole. With your back to the sun let sunlight shine through the small hole onto another piece of card. You can use two postcards but for myself I found larger cards cut down on scattered sunlight which tended to washout the image. You can sometimes get multiple images from holes or gaps in leaves from trees but this might not be the time of year for that.

On the 21st/22nd March look out for the crescent Moon with Venus and Mars in the evening sky.

 

 

Next SMAG meeting

First an apology for not posting anything else for February – blame it on the Christmas rush!

The next meeting of SMAG will be at St Mark’s church, Whitehills, Northampton on Saturday 21st March 7 to 9 pm. Hopefully we shall have a good view of Venus and Mars and perhaps share experiences of the previous day’s solar eclipse.

You are most welcome to attend. Hot drinks will be available (donations towards costs much appreciated)