Day 355: Total Eclipse
Side, March 29, 2006
Yeah, we know this is out of order, but it was so awesome we had to skip ahead. When we were visiting Pasadena last month, Marcus’ Caltech workmate Peter said that he was going to Turkey to watch an eclipse. We hadn’t heard about it, and things worked out so that we ended up in the right place at the right time. And considering the eclipse was one of the coolest things we’ve ever seen, we’re really glad we did.
We were lucky to met up with Peter, his wife Doreen, and the rest of their small Caltech-affiliated tour group in Antalya on the southern coast of Turkey. They invited us along with them to view the eclipse at a posh resort in Side. The weather could not have been more perfect, and we really lucked out because it was totally overcast the next two days.
The whole area was packed with tourists that had bused in to see the eclipse. A lot of people watched it from the many ruins in the vicinity of Side. We ended up on a huge terrace with more telescopes than you could shake a shish kebap at. Some of Peter’s group brought spotting scopes to project the image of the partial eclipse onto pieces of paper for everyone to enjoy. They had Turkish TV filming them at one point and loads of tourists taking photos of their eclipse images. You could even make out a handful of sunspots.
Marcus and Peter with Peter’s setup showing the partial eclipse.
It took about one and a half hours for the eclipse to go from first contact around 12:30pm to total about 2pm. Doreen and Kelly spent the time keeping track through fancy shades designed for the occassion.
As the partial eclipse approached totality, it got progressively colder and darker. People put on coats and took off their sunglasses. Right before totality, we watched thin crescent of the sun turn into a string of lights called Bailey’s Beads, which are formed by the cratered surface of the moon. And then BAM! It went dark.
We’ve seen a few partial eclipses before, but the difference between a partial and total is literally night and day. And we’ve seen those pictures in textbooks that show the sun’s corona blazing from a black disk that we were sure were taken with fancy filters and optics. But holy shit! The sky goes really dark, you can see a bunch of planets, and there’s this huge white flaming eye in the sky – all of which are visible to the naked eye.
No fancy filters or anything. This is what it looks like.
During the total eclipse things were weird. We could see Mars, Venus, and even Mercury. We saw confused bats flying around. The whole sky was a dark twillight except for a faint sunset around the whole horizon. It lasted almost four minutes, but it went by really fast.
From what we’ve heard, a total eclipse on May 28, 585 BC even stopped a war between the Medes and Lydians. Having seen one now, we can understand how that would have scared the kapoc out of someone who didn’t know it was coming. There’ll be one in the States on August 21st 2017 that goes from Oregon to South Carolina and we’ll definitely go out of our way to see it.
Thanks again to all the great folks in the Cohen eclipse tour group for having us along. We couldn’t have asked for a better group of people to watch the eclipse with!
Tags: Turkey
Kelly & Marcus
April 1st, 2006 at 5:18 am
How fantastic – I’m so glad you went out of order and did this blog! Thanks 🙂
Love you xoxoxo
April 1st, 2006 at 7:15 am
WOW! We’ve enjoyed reading of your adventures thru Lynn’s emails, but this is the one experience we really envy. You are so right about the difference between totals & partials. Our one eclipse occurred on an overcast day on the France/Germany border about 7 years ago. The clouds parted right at totality. Awesome is the word for it. We hope to see another before 2017, but that one is definitely on the calendar
Happy travels, A&R
April 3rd, 2006 at 4:36 pm
Hey Marcus, Thanks for the Cashew Fenny. Not sure quite what that is, but we’ll experiment next Friday… Sounds like you are having a great time.
Good luck on your travels.
-Steve
April 4th, 2006 at 3:49 am
Thanks for the fantastic pictures! What an awsome view, I’m so jealous
April 4th, 2006 at 12:43 pm
Thanks for sharing the view with us! we can only hope we live long enough to see it again. thanks!!!