Friday, April 08, 2005
Sky serpent scheduled to swallow sun tomorrow morning
New Zealanders that can be dragged from their weekend sleep-ins tomorrow will be greeted by a very different sunrise. At 6:45am the sun will rise in the east as usual but, unusually it will be in the midst of a dire fight with a sky serpent attempting to swallow it and plunge the world into eternal darkness. Or maybe you'll prefer science's explanation?
When the sun rises tomorrow around 60% of it will be obscured by the moon. Within an hour the eclipse will be finished with the sun still only 12 degrees into it's journey through the sky. This means if you want to see the eclipse you are gong to need to find a spot with an almost unobscured eastern horizon, in New Zealand that's going to mean somewhere high or somewhere on the coast. I'm going to try and drag myself out of bed tomorrow and get out to the peninsula to have a look so you might even get a report on it from me.