Moon AND Sun
Credit & Copyright:
Fred Espenak (courtesy of
www.MrEclipse.com)
This composite image was made from 22 separate pictures
of the Moon and Sun all taken from
Chisamba, Zambia during the
total phase of the 2001 June 21 solar eclipse.
The multiple exposures
were digitally processed and combined to
simultaneously show a wealth of detail which no single camera
exposure or naked-eye observation could easily reveal.
Most striking are the incredible flowing streamers
of the Sun's outer atmosphere or
solar corona, notoriously difficult to see except when
the
new Moon blocks the bright solar disk.
Features on the darkened near side
of the Moon can
also be made out,
illuminated
by sunlight reflected from
a
full Earth.
A giant solar prominence seems to hang
just beyond the Moon's eastern (left) edge while about one
diameter farther east of the eclipsed Sun is the
relatively faint (4th magnitude)
star 1 Geminorum.
The still active
Sun
will be totally eclipsed by the Moon tomorrow,
but the path of the total eclipse will mostly cross the relatively
inaccessible continent
of Antarctica.