Photographs by Boza Ivanovic and J.C. Casado

The lions sleep… today. Yes it’s true. On the 3rd of November 2013 a total solar eclipse will cross Central Africa, and some adventurous GLORIA team members will take a walk on the wild East side of Turkana Lake in Kenya to record and broadcast the event live (see below for details). This UNESCO World Heritage Site is also known as the cradle of humanity. Our ancestors could not predict the occurrence of eclipses as we do. However, even armed with our scientific knowledge, the experience of an eclipse remains as spectacular to us as it must have been for them. The fact that this one is occurring during the year of maximum solar activity, holds the promise of a particularly lovely spectacle to the privileged watchers.

Phenomenon

A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth, and the Moon fully or partially blocks the Sun, as seen from Earth. This can happen only at New Moon (Moon between the Sun and Earth) and if the Sun and the Moon are perfectly aligned as seen from Earth. In a total eclipse (A), the disk of the Sun is fully obscured by the Moon. In annular (B) and partial eclipses (C), only part of the Sun appears obscured. The first total solar eclipse for a year, this one is a so-called hybrid solar eclipse. It starts as annular, where the outer disk of the Sun remains visible, and it evolves to a total eclipse. By the time the event is visible in Africa (the eclipse moves from West to East), the disk of the Sun will be fully covered by the Moon and a total eclipse will be seen. At locations outside the totality track, such as southern Europe, a partial eclipse will be observed. So if you are living in southern Europe and want to view the partial eclipse, make sure to wear proper eye protection.

Full band (purple lines) from the Solar Eclipse November 3, 2013 as reported by NASA. See here.

Expedition

GLORIA will follow the event from Turkana lake in Kenya (see G1 on figure). At this site the totality duration will be approximately 15 seconds. The time chart below shows all the relevant times of the event. Expedition leader, Dr. Miquel Serra-Ricart, astronomers of IAC, Canary Islands, and Dr. Paul Cox (SLOOH project) will provide commentary of the live event in English. The non-profit Shelios association (shelios.org) is responsible for the planning and logistics.

Broadcast

The total duration of the eclipse is 2h 15m. However the live broadcasting from the observation place will be of 15 minutes in total. There will be two live connections on November 3^rd :

See table below for the details.

Note 1: The local time at the observing site will be 17:20 to 17:30.
Note 2: UT – Universal Time; CET – Central European Time. See here.

Additionally from 13:00 UT (14:00 CET) and every minutes thereafter, a live image of the Sun (partially eclipsed by the Moon) will be shown on the website.

The broadcast can be followed on the GLORIA web portal live.gloria-project.eu. More information can be found here.

Images collections from the past expeditions are available at:
GLORIA Flickr
StarryEarth Flickr

Educational activity

Using the data collected by a weather station, an educational activity is proposed to be carried out:

Atmospheric parameters changes during the 2013 Total Solar Eclipse.

See the activity reference document here.

November 3^rd, 2013. Eclipse facts table.

G1. Turkana lake.

Times & Sun positions for Europe

In the Xavier M. Jubier website it is available a detailed description of the eclipse data for different European cities.

Sta Cruz de Tenerife

Las Palmas, Gran Canaria

Sevilla

Madrid

Barcelona

Catania, Italia

Chania, Greece