Northern Equinox Eclipse
Image Credit &
Copyright:
Stan Honda
Snowy and cold is weather you might expect at the start of
spring for Longyearbyen on the Arctic archipelago of
Svalbard, Norway.
But that turned out to be good weather for watching the
Moon's umbral shadow
race across northern planet Earth.
The region was plunged into darkness for 3 minutes during the
March 20
total solar eclipse while insulated eclipse chasers
witnessed the dark Sun in the cold clear sky.
In this well-timed snapshot captured near the end of totality,
the Moon's shadow sweeps away from the horizon and
the solar corona fades as the lunar disk just begins to uncover
the Sun.
Streaming past the Moon's edge, direct rays of sunlight create the
fleeting appearance of a
glistening diamond ring.