The following breath-taking images of the lunar shadow sweeping, at high speed,
across the surface of the Earth were photographed by the METEOSAT 6
satellite which took pictures of the Earth's surface at ten minutes intervals
during the eclipse. The pictures clearly demonstrate that from the moment when
the umbra touched the European continent for the first time it reached
the position of our expedition in Hungary near NΘmetkΘr in less than 40 minutes.
I used these pictures to create two animations. The
first animation shows the complete progress of the eclipse
over the European continent. The animation starts at 8:00 UT, i.e. before the
eclipse began. The partial eclipse started at 8:26 UT over the north western part
of North America, outside the field of view of the METEOSAT 6 satellite. Neither
is the beginning of totality at 9:30 recorded as the totality belt started over
the Atlantic, not far from the North American coast. At this time, however, the
penumbra, i.e. the partial eclipse, can already be noticed in the photograph.
At 9:50 UT the umbra is just at the left-hand side of the picture. By 11:40 UT
it will have swept across the whole picture to the right-hand side. In the last
hour, i.e. until 12:40 when the animation ends we watch the penumbra retreat.
Totality ended at 12:36 UT over the Bay of Bengal and partial eclipse at 13:40 UT
over the Indian ocean, again outside the satellite's field of view.
The second animation shows a detail of the
umbra, i.e. the area on the Earth's surface which is currently experiencing
totality. The animation starts at 10:10 UT when the umbra was still over the
Atlantic, near the British Isles, and ends at 11:00 UT, when the umbra reached
Romania.
The following images show the position of the Moon's umbra within the period
from 10:10 UT to 11:00 UT. For each image the speed of the umbra relative to
the Earth's surface is given.
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10:10 UT, velocity 0.91 km/s
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10:20 UT, velocity 0.82 km/s
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10:30 UT, velocity 0.75 km/s
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10:40 UT, velocity 0.71 km/s
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10:50 UT, velocity 0.69 km/s
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11:00 UT, velocity 0.68 km/s
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Copyright (C) 1999 EUMETSAT