o/t Full Solar Eclipse

[kilgore_trout1]

ACCRA, Ghana - Tourists and scientists were gathering at spots around

the world for a solar show ﾗ the first total eclipse in years, which

will sweep northeast from Brazil to Mongolia, blotting out the sun

across swathes of of the world's poorest lands.

Wednesday's eclipse will blot out the sun in highly populated areas,

including west Africa, where governments scrambled to educate people

about the dangers of looking at the eclipse without proper eye

protection.

In Togo, authorities imported hundreds of thousands of pairs of

special glasses that consumers cleared rapidly from shelves in the

capital, Lome. But villagers in the interior won't have access to the

eyewear and officials called on them to stay home.

"Please, do not go out and keep your children indoors on solar

eclipse day," Togo's minister for health said in a message broadcast

on state television.

Night will turn to day in the eclipse's route and a corona will glow

around the edges of the moon as it comes between the earth and the

sun. But the corona's light can burn eyes.

In Ghana, where the effect will be particularly visible, people were

spending about US$1 (about 80 euro cents) for "solar shades" ﾗ paper-

rimmed glasses with dark plastic lenses that resemble eyewear used

for viewing three-dimensional movies.

Crowds were anticipated in prime viewing points, among them Accra,

the capital of Ghana, and in Turkey and India. In Ghana, the

University of Cape Coast will broadcast the eclipse simultaneously on

the Internet.

Tens of thousands of tourists were expected along the Turkish

Mediterranean coast. Astronomers from NASA and Britain's Royal

Institute of Astronomy also were going to an ancient Roman

amphitheater in Turkey to view the phenomenon.

The moon is expected to first begin blocking out the sun in the

morning in Brazil before the path of greatest blockage migrates to

Africa, then on to Turkey and up into Mongolia, where it will fade

out with the sunset.

Superstition will follow around the world, as it has for generations.

 

One Indian paper advised pregnant women not to go outside during the

eclipse to avoid having a blind baby or one with a cleft lip. Food

cooked before the eclipse should be thrown out afterward because it

will be impure and those who are holding a knife or ax during the

eclipse will cut themselves, the Hindustan Times added.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060328/ap_on_sc/world_eclipse_1

[huw_finney]

Perfectly good scientific basis for all those actions. But seriously, just think what it was (is even now in some places) like if you didn't know what was happening. There is only a partial eclipse here in the UK, even so I will have a look, really puts things into perspective. The moon is one big rock!