IYA2009 marks the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei's first astronomical observation through a telescope. It is nothing short of a worldwide celebration, promoting astronomy and its contribution to society and culture, with events at regional, national, and global levels.
The IAU is the international astronomical organisation that brings together almost 10 000 distinguished astronomers from all nations of the world. Its mission is to promote and safeguard the science of astronomy in all its aspects through international cooperation. The IAU also serves as the internationally recognised authority for assigning designations to celestial bodies and surface features on them. Founded in 1919, the IAU is the world's largest professional body for astronomers.
One of the year's most prolific meteor showers makes its appearance in mid-December. The Geminid shower peaks the night of December 13/14. Although frequently considered a poor cousin to August's Perseid shower, the Geminids often put on a better show. In a good year, observers can expect to see more than 60 "shooting stars" per hour -- an average of better than one per minute -- at the Geminids' peak.
Unfortunately, 2008 isn't the best year for the Geminids. The Moon reaches its full phase December 12 and won't appear much different the following night. With bright moonlight in the sky essentially from dusk to dawn, fainter meteors will be washed out, and only the bright ones will shine through. Under clear skies, attentive observers should see 10 to 15 meteors per hour -- not great, but better than all but a handful of nights during 2008.
One way to compensate for the Moon's presence is to find a spot where a building or tree blocks the Moon from view. This will make the sky appear darker. Also, try to observe from a rural location, where city lights won't add to the Moon's glow. Because December nights tend to be cold, bundle up in layers if you plan to view the Geminids. Reclining in a lawn chair is a great way to take in a lot of the sky at once, but be sure to get up and walk around occasionally. It also helps to drink some hot coffee or tea.
In 2009 we celebrate 400 years of Galileo's observations, the background theme for the International Year of Astronomy 2009.
One of Galileo's study objects was our star - the Sun, where he observed one of the first know types of solar activity - Sunspots. 400 years have past since Galileo's observations, but there are still a large number of people around the world that think the Sun is just a bright perfect yellow ball.
And this is where you come in!
"Dawn of the IYA2009" is a global, Sun observation campaign, proposed by Centro de Astrofísica da Universidade do Porto (CAUP) and the IYA2009's Solar Physics Group (SPG), which seeks not only to be the global teaser for the IYA2009 (a first calling card), but also to show to a larger, global public, what our star is all about.
For this activity we propose that, starting at local noon, 1st of January 2009, everyone with means to (safely) observe the Sun, gather outside science centers, town halls, shopping centers or simply your own street, and present the Sun and the IYA2009 to the world.
We call all professional and hobby astronomers to participate in what will be the largest Sun observation event in the world. Whether you have a telescope with a solar filter, an H-alpha telescope, a sunspotter or a simple pinhole projection system, you are the one we need.
All registered participants will download a set of instructions on how to safely observe the Sun, a IYA2009 logo to place on their equipment and/or a small poster presenting the IYA2009, which should be present during the activity.
Vesta swims with the Fishes
One of the sky's nicest gifts this month is an easy way to find and track the large asteroid 4 Vesta. This space rock remains within 1 binocular field of the 4th-magnitude star Alpha Piscium, which lies halfway up in the southeastern sky during early evening.
From a suburban backyard, you can spot the 7th-magnitude asteroid without much effort. Apart from Alpha, only three other stars in the area shine brighter than Vesta. From December 7 to 9, Vesta appears near the vertex of an equilateral triangle of these stars, the brightest of which is Alpha itself. Return every couple of evenings and you will notice one of the dots -- Vesta -- has shifted position.
Under a bright urban sky, however, you'll be challenged to spot Alpha with your naked eyes, and Vesta may even be out of binocular range, obscured by the veil of artificial light.
While you're in this area, point your scope to Alpha and crank up the magnification to 120x or more. This star is a binary system whose stars take about 930 years to orbit each other. The primary shines at magnitude 4.2 and the secondary a magnitude fainter. The stars lie 1.8" apart, near the limit of a 3-inch scope for a typical observer.
The sky's two brightest planets stand poised to pass each other in evening twilight. A slim crescent Moon will join the pair December 1. Keep your eyes on the early evening sky for the next week, and you will witness the most dramatic planetary alignment of 2008. The southwestern sky provides the stage as Venus and Jupiter - the two brightest points of light in the sky - begin their celestial dance. The two appear closest November 30, but it's worth watching for several days on either side as they make a beeline for each other and then back off.
Throughout this period, Venus appears 7 times brighter than Jupiter. Even so, Jupiter easily outshines every other starlike object in the sky. To add to the drama, a slender crescent Moon passes the planet pair after sunset December 1. "Although all three objects shine bright enough to see just 30 minutes after sunset, the scene grows more spectacular as twilight deepens," says Astronomy magazine Senior Editor Richard Talcott. The trio doesn't set until 3 hours after the Sun.
The gap between the two planets has been closing all month. In early November, Jupiter appeared some 30° to Venus' upper left. By November 30, the separation drops to just 2° - four times the Moon's apparent diameter. That same evening, a waxing crescent Moon lies 8° to Venus' lower right. One night later, the Moon hangs just 2.5° to Venus' upper left. The Moon then appears 15 percent lit, although the "dark" side should glow faintly from earthshine - sunlight that reflects off Earth, reaches the Moon, and then bounces back to us.
Such close encounters between Venus and Jupiter happen fairly often. Frequently, however, these conjunctions occur close enough to the Sun that the planets appear in a bright sky. The two last met in February's predawn sky, although their altitude then was less than half of what it is now. Viewers will have to wait until March 2012 for Venus and Jupiter to have another nice evening conjunction.
Picture of the moon taken by the Moon Impact Probe
What was extraordinary about the historic event of Chandrayaan-1’s probe landing on the moon on Friday night was that the spacecraft was built in India, it was put into orbit by the Indian rocket, PSLV-C11, and the launch took place from Indian soil, said a jubilant M. Annadurai, Project Director, Chandrayaan-1. Mr. Annadurai led the team that integrated the 11 scientific instruments, including the Moon Impact Probe (MIP) into the Chandrayaan-1 bus at the ISRO Satelllite Centre, Bangalore. The MIP was built by the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), Thiruvananthapuram. “We have got all the data. We are working on the data and processing them,” Mr. Annadurai said.
S. Ramakrishnan, Director (Projects), VSSC, called it “a momentous occasion for ISRO and India because it is for the first time that we have sent a spacecraft to an extra-terrestrial body and its MIP with the logo of the Indian flag has reached the moon soil.”
Everything went as per schedule right from the separation of the MIP at 8.06.54 p.m. IST from Chandrayaan-1 to the MIP impacting on the Shackleton crater 25 minutes later, Mr. Annadurai said. The entire sequence of events began at 7.15 p.m. at the Spacecraft Control Centre (SCC), which was the nerve-centre of the operations, at the ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC), Bangalore, headed by its Director S.K. Shivakumar.
The spacecraft got oriented in the right attitude before the command went from the SCC for the MIP to separate. The MIP separated as per plan and “we got the positive signal that it had separated,” Mr. Annadurai said. Then the data link from the cable to the radio frequency got changed as per plan. “For 25 minutes of its descent towards the lunar soil, we received continuous radio frequency signal from the MIP,” he added. About 300 seconds after the separation of the MIP, the SCC received signals of a reduction in the velocity of the descent of the MIP indicating that the retro-rocket had fired.
Twenty-five minutes after the separation began, “the receiver went on unlock, indicating that the MIP had impacted on the Shackleton crater on the moon,” said Mr. Annadurai. “The trajectory of the MIP was excellent,” he said.
As the MIP crashed on the lunar surface, it self-destructed.
Earlier, data from the video-camera of the MIP, its radar altimeter and mass spectrometer kept pouring in simultaneously throughout the 25 minutes of the MIP’s descent. The video-camera had taken a number of pictures of the moon’s surface.
As this sequence was being enacted, Chandrayaan-1, the mother-spacecraft, had gone behind the moon.
“We have had a good success and everything went as per our aim. What is important is that the former President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (a rocket technologist himself) was present at the SCC during the occasion,” said Mr. Annadurai.
Mr. Ramakrishnan called it “a precision mission” in which the MIP was in communication with the mother-spacecraft during all the 25 minutes. The MIP separation was indicated by a disturbance in the Chandrayaan-1. Its gyros and sensors sensed the separation. “We could see the spin-up and de-orbit motors work [on the plot-board],” he said.
“Everything went precisely in this mission. Right from the PSLV-C11 launch on October 22, the Chandrayaan-1 being safely inserted into the lunar orbit on November 8, the MIP separating from Chandrayaan-1 and its impacting on the moon, everything performed with clock-work precision,” Mr. Ramakrishnan said.
High overhead around the 8 p.m. local standard time is a bright configuration of stars that people unfamiliar with the sky often mistake for the Big Dipper. Big it is, but – at least in an official sense – a dipper it is not.
This large figure is not usually described as a dipper in most stargazing guides; you shouldn't expect to find any recognized authority for this Autumn Dipper. Truth be told, when starry dippers are mentioned, most people immediately think of the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper in the northern sky, and perhaps even the inverted Milk Dipper in Sagittarius.
The Autumn Dipper, in fact, looks like a much larger and brighter version of the Little Dipper.
The "bowl" is composed of the Great Square of Pegasus, the Flying Horse. The Great Square is one of the unmistakable landmarks of the night sky. The Square is not a constellation in itself but belongs partially to Pegasus and partially to Andromeda, the Princess, and helps find both. It is not a perfect square, appearing slightly battered out of true square shape.
Pegasus actually supplies only three stars of the Great Square: Markab, Scheat and Algenib. The fourth is Alpheratz, the brightest star of Andromeda.
The "handle" of our Autumn Dipper is composed of stars belonging to the constellations Andromeda and Perseus. Alpheratz, Mirach and Almach are almost evenly spaced toward the northeast and are the brightest stars in Andromeda. The next bright star, located along the same line, Marfak (sometimes spelled Mirfak), is the brightest star of Perseus. Two of these four stars (Alpheratz and Markab) are valuable navigational stars and the nose of the mythical horse contains yet another in Enif.
Pegasus is, of course, the famed winged horse of Greek mythology. He's been found on ancient tablets from the Euphrates Valley, and on Greek coins that were minted during the fourth century B.C. In legend, he was born from the blood of the gorgon Medusa when that monster was slain by Perseus. When Pegasus was brought to Mount Helicon, one kick of his hoof caused the spring of Hippocrene to flow – a source of inspiration for poets. In another tradition he carried the thunder and lightning for Zeus.
The old star atlases that used allegorical drawings depicted Pegasus turned over on his back with his body outlined by the Square. Some years ago I was giving a lecture under the dome of the Space Theater at New York's Hayden Planetarium when, using my electric pointer I tried tracing out Pegasus. "So that's Pegasus . . ." I started to say, when suddenly, from out of the darkness I was interrupted by a voice that spontaneously exclaimed: "I see it!"
I then finished my sentence: ". . . but for people today to honestly claim that they can actually visualize the upside-down front half of a flying horse is a masterpiece of imagination!"
From the White House to the Presidential campaign trail to the American scientific community, India’s modest Chandrayaan moon venture, whilegreeted warmly, reminded the US that it was getting sloppy in maintaining its supreme lead in space expedition.
Democratic candidate Barack Obama, whose alert campaign staff seem to keep him abreast of any development in India (he was quick to condole the death of Field Marshal Maneckshaw even before the White House took notice), used India’s moon launch to tell Americans that they were taking their eyes off the ball.
“With India’s launch of its first unmanned lunar spacecraft following closely on the heels of China’s first spacewalk, we are reminded just how urgently the United States must revitalise its space programme if we are to remain the undisputed leader in space, science, and technology,’’ Obama said, promising to revitalise the US space programme and close the gap between the Space Shuttle’s retirement and its next-generation replacement including funding $2 billion more for Nasa.
“But more money alone is not enough,’’ he warned. “We must not only retain our space workforce so that we don’t let other countries surpass our technical capabilities; we must train new scientists and engineers for the next generation.’’ The winding down of the Space Shuttle programme and budgetary battles have constrained the US space program although President Bush stepped up to give it a boost last year.
The White House, too, pro forma hailed India’s moon mission as “encouraging’’ and “exciting.’’ But away from presidential politics and polemics, the US scientific and business community greeted the event with gusto, seeing it as an opportunity for collaboration for a greater good.
Nasa, which has two instruments on board, said data from its two instruments will contribute to its increased understanding of the lunar environment as it implements the nation’s space exploration policy, which calls for renewed robotic and human missions to the moon.
“The opportunity to fly Nasa instruments on Chandrayaan-1 undoubtedly will lead to important scientific discoveries,’’ Nasa Administrator Michael Griffin said. “This exciting collaboration represents an important next step in what we hope to be a long and mutually beneficial relationship with India in future civil space exploration.’’
Much of India’s early space ventures were undertaken with Nasa help and collaboration before the two countries fell out in the 1990s during a phase of technology denials and embargo, some of which still continues to this day.
Meanwhile, the United States India Business Council (USIBC), representing 280 of the largest US companies investing in India, also hailed the mission as the beginning of long “relationship promoting the opening of the frontier of outer space.’’
“This unique technology partnership in civil space exploration, which taps India’s highly skilled scientific expertise with American instrumentation furnished by Raytheon, beckons what we hope will be a long and mutually beneficial relationship promoting the opening of the frontier of outer space,’’ USIBC president Ron Somers said.
The Chandrayaan venture even made it to the widely watched evening network news (each of which has ten times the viewership of cable channels such as CNN and Fox) as an example of India’s progress and intent.
The past decade has seen so many incredible advances in astronomy that it would be hard to single out one as standing above the others. But near the top of my list is the work by Andrea Ghez (UCLA) and her colleagues to measure the mass of the Milky Way’s central black hole. In a paper posted on the Web last week, they derive a new and improved mass for our galaxy's monster in the middle.
Milky Way's central arcsecond
The orbits of stars within the Milky Way's central tenth of a light-year loop around the known location of the central black hole (yellow star symbol). The fuzzy blobs are diffraction-limited star images in an infrared adaptive-optics frame taken by a 10-meter Keck telescope in 2004. The frame is 1 arcsecond (0.13 light-year) square. While every star in this image has been seen to move, estimates of orbital parameters are only possible for those that show significant curvature so far.
The annual average positions for these stars are plotted as colored dots (which have increasing color saturation with time). Also plotted are the best-fitting orbit solutions. These orbits provide the clearest reading yet on the mass of the central black hole. Click for movie.
UCLA Galactic Center Group / Keck Observatory
The team’s pure measurement yields a mass of 4.1 million Suns with an uncertainty of only 0.6 million Suns. But if the black hole is assumed to be stationary with respect to the rest of the galaxy (and there's no evidence otherwise), its mass rises a bit to 4.5 million Suns with an uncertainty of only 0.4 million. This latter result is significantly higher than previous measurements made by Ghez’s team and by a European group led by Reinhard Genzel (Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Germany).
A black hole of that mass has a diameter of 0.1 astronomical unit (about 9 million miles).
Why is this measurement so amazing? The center of the Milky Way is 27,000 light-years away, and it's hidden behind thick clouds of gas and dust along our line of sight. How do you measure the mass of an invisible object tens of thousands of light-years from Earth when even its surroundings are obscured from view?
Ghez and her team had to employ all the resources of modern astronomy: a really big telescope, detectors that operate in the infrared, and the relatively recent technology of adaptive optics (AO for short). Oh yeah, they also needed a lot of patience.
Milky Way's central 10 arcseconds
This narrow-field image of the galactic center, taken at an infrared wavelength of 3.8 microns, resolves many stars around the position of the central black hole ("Sgr A*). The frame is 10 arcseconds tall. Keck's Laser Guide Star adaptive-optics system achieved a resolution of 82 milliarcseconds here, the equivalent of resolving a pair of headlights in New York from Los Angeles.
UCLA Galactic Center Group / Keck Observatory
For the past decade, they have been observing the galactic center with the 10-meter Keck I and II telescopes in Hawaii. Keck gives them the brute-force light-gathering power to see stars in the galactic center. They observe at infrared wavelengths, which can penetrate the thick clouds of gas and dust. And most of all, they use AO, which involves a laser-generated artificial guide star and flexible, deformable mirrors to compensate for the rapid-fire blurring effects of Earth’s atmosphere.
The combination of these techniques allowed the group to resolve dozens of individual stars near the galactic center. Incredibly, the team could trace the curving orbital motions of several of these stars over more than a decade, and actually create a movie of these motions. Astronomers of just 25 years ago would have considered this magic.
The high mass of the Milky Way’s black hole, known as Sagittarius A* (pronounced "A-star"), made this possible. Anything orbiting near such a massive object is going to move really, really fast. These stars are whirling around the black hole at speeds exceeding 4,500 km per second (10 million miles per hour). One star in particular, dubbed S0-2, has been clocked at nearly 8,000 km/sec. By using simple orbital laws dating back to Isaac Newton in the 1600s, Ghez could use these stellar velocities to derive the mass of the central gravitating object.
In their new paper (accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal), Ghez and her team took into account various effects, such as uncertainties in star positions, ignored by in previous studies. “It’s been a bit like teenagers making emphatic but uninformed statements,” explains Ghez. “In our new paper, we try to take an honest look at where the problems are. We’ve learned that things are more complicated. We’re growing out of our teenage years!”
Besides coming up with a more precise mass measurement, the latest observations refine the distance to the Milky Way’s center: 27,400 light-years, with an uncertainty of 1,300 light-years.
In addition, the group finds no evidence that the central black hole is being gravitationally yanked around by the mass of another. This argues in favor of the team’s higher mass measurement. This new, higher mass value is also more consistent with predictions based on the famous relationship between black-hole mass and the total mass in the spherical component of large galaxies.
Venus Returns
For more than a year, planetary observers in the Northern Hemisphere have been treated to a steady parade of our solar-system siblings particularly well placed at high declination.
That series has unfortunately come to an end with Saturn and Mars both receding into the evening twilight. Jupiter now commands the evening, but for most people in the U.S., Canada, and Europe, it's just too low in the sky to produce satisfying views.
Venus often has picturesque conjunctions with celestial objects, but none more frequently then the Moon.
S&T: Richard T. Fienberg
Fortunately, Venus has just passed superior conjunction, and is already shining low in the western horizon shortly after sunset. While mid-northern observers will find Venus very low in the evening twilight, there's still plenty of fun to be had pursuing the brightest planet in our skies.
One easy project anyone can do is to see how early in the evening you can spot Venus. I've managed to see it roughly a half-hour before sunset with only my unaided eyes by placing myself in the shadow of a tree or building, then searching just to the west of the Sun about two hand-widths away, roughly at the 10-o'clock position from the Sun. Venus is so bright that it shines through daylight skies easily, but you have to know exactly where to look to find it. For help, check out our interactive sky chart to help narrow down the area of your search. Clear, transparent skies makes this much easier to do.
If you're still having troubler finding it, don't worry. Once a month the Moon glides by the area, giving you a visual cue to both focus your eye on and skip over to Venus much easier than on other days. The Moon will be about 6° southwest of Venus on September 1st.
S&T editor Sean Walker imaged Venus throughout the 2007 western elongation with a monochrome video camera and color filters. This image was taken through an ultra-violet filter to reveal the planet's mysterious cloud features. Click on the image to see an animation of the planet's atmosphere as it churns through its four-day rotation cycle.
S&T: Sean Walker
Venus makes some beautiful pairings with other interesting objects throughout this apparition. On the evening of September 11, it passes roughly 20 arcminutes north of Mars. Eight days later, Venus passes just 2½° north of Spica.
Careful telescopic observing can reveal hints of the faint cloud bands that circulate around the planet roughly every four days. I've been able to detect these visually only a few times in the past, usually on days of excellent transparency and good seeing conditions. Observing through colored filters will enhance these features, and also dim the view enough to make these observations possible.
If you're into planetary imaging, these cloud bands can be recorded with monochrome cameras equipped with colored filters, and are easier to detect at shorter wavelengths. Due to a still poorly understood phenomena, the highest contrast features in Venuses cloud tops appear in the near-ultraviolet wavelengths around 365 nanometers. Special filters, such as the "U" filter in a UBVRI photometric filter set, will aid greatly in recording these ever-changing features.
Like all the other planets, your best photographic results will come when Venus is high in the sky, so I try to image it during daylight hours. Be extremely careful if you do this, as one glimpse of the Sun through a telescope or even a finderscope can cause permanent blindness.
Give any of these projects a try. You may just find yourself drawn back to our sister planet much more often than you expected to be.
For more than a year, planetary observers in the Northern Hemisphere have been treated to a steady parade of our solar-system siblings particularly well placed at high declination.
That series has unfortunately come to an end with Saturn and Mars both receding into the evening twilight. Jupiter now commands the evening, but for most people in the U.S., Canada, and Europe, it's just too low in the sky to produce satisfying views.
Venus often has picturesque conjunctions with celestial objects, but none more frequently then the Moon.
S&T: Richard T. Fienberg
Fortunately, Venus has just passed superior conjunction, and is already shining low in the western horizon shortly after sunset. While mid-northern observers will find Venus very low in the evening twilight, there's still plenty of fun to be had pursuing the brightest planet in our skies.
One easy project anyone can do is to see how early in the evening you can spot Venus. I've managed to see it roughly a half-hour before sunset with only my unaided eyes by placing myself in the shadow of a tree or building, then searching just to the west of the Sun about two hand-widths away, roughly at the 10-o'clock position from the Sun. Venus is so bright that it shines through daylight skies easily, but you have to know exactly where to look to find it. For help, check out our interactive sky chart to help narrow down the area of your search. Clear, transparent skies makes this much easier to do.
If you're still having troubler finding it, don't worry. Once a month the Moon glides by the area, giving you a visual cue to both focus your eye on and skip over to Venus much easier than on other days. The Moon will be about 6° southwest of Venus on September 1st.
S&T editor Sean Walker imaged Venus throughout the 2007 western elongation with a monochrome video camera and color filters. This image was taken through an ultra-violet filter to reveal the planet's mysterious cloud features. Click on the image to see an animation of the planet's atmosphere as it churns through its four-day rotation cycle.
S&T: Sean Walker
Venus makes some beautiful pairings with other interesting objects throughout this apparition. On the evening of September 11, it passes roughly 20 arcminutes north of Mars. Eight days later, Venus passes just 2½° north of Spica.
Careful telescopic observing can reveal hints of the faint cloud bands that circulate around the planet roughly every four days. I've been able to detect these visually only a few times in the past, usually on days of excellent transparency and good seeing conditions. Observing through colored filters will enhance these features, and also dim the view enough to make these observations possible.
If you're into planetary imaging, these cloud bands can be recorded with monochrome cameras equipped with colored filters, and are easier to detect at shorter wavelengths. Due to a still poorly understood phenomena, the highest contrast features in Venuses cloud tops appear in the near-ultraviolet wavelengths around 365 nanometers. Special filters, such as the "U" filter in a UBVRI photometric filter set, will aid greatly in recording these ever-changing features.
Like all the other planets, your best photographic results will come when Venus is high in the sky, so I try to image it during daylight hours. Be extremely careful if you do this, as one glimpse of the Sun through a telescope or even a finderscope can cause permanent blindness.
Give any of these projects a try. You may just find yourself drawn back to our sister planet much more often than you expected to be.
Solar Eclipse
On the Arctic Ocean
Rick Fienberg, Sky & Telescope's editor emeritus, led an eclipse expedition aboard the Russian icebreaker 50 Years of Victory in the Barents Sea west of Novaya Zemlya. "This trip has been awesome," he writes "— polar bears in the wild, a dip in the ocean at the North Pole — and we beat the odds and saw today's total eclipse, from a position near 76° north, 55° east.
"The day dawned foggy, but by 10:55 a.m. our time when the partial eclipse began, the fog had burned off and we were under scattered clouds with patches of blue sky all around. Excitement began to build among the approximately 100 passengers and 100 crew out on deck as we watched first contact through our solar filters. Almost immediately, though, the clouds merged into a single mass, hiding the Sun from view except for brief intervals during which we could see the progress of the partial eclipse, with the clouds as our filter.
"With about a half hour to go till totality we could see sunlight sparkling on the water in the distance, so the ship steamed at full power toward it. We reached an area where the cloud cover was thin enough to grant us a spectacular view of the eclipse from just before the start of totality through to the very end.
"We saw a beautiful 'diamond ring' as the corona emerged around the Sun along with several electric-pink prominences, most notably a large one at the 1 o'clock position for us. I was glancing occasionally at the horizon all around to experience the Moon's shadow washing over us — which was very dramatic out on the open water.
"Mercury immediately popped into view a few degrees to the Sun's left; I briefly looked further left to see brighter Venus shining too, about 15° to the Sun's left.
"The diamond ring at 3rd contact came too soon, as always. Within minutes of the end of totality the remaining cloud cover burned off, and by 4th contact an hour later we were sailing toward Murmansk under an almost completely clear, blue sky.
"According to the climatology, we had less than a 30% chance of seeing totality, yet I'm now 7 for 7 for total solar eclipses."