11 August 1999 Solar Eclipse Shadow
Visible Imaging System/Polar Spacecraft
The University of Iowa

An eclipse of the sun occurred on 11 August 1999 beginning at sunrise over the North Atlantic Ocean at 09:35 GMT and will proceed across the southwestern tip of England and cross the English Channel into France. From there the moon's shadow will proceed through central and eastern Europe and Asia--including the countries of Germany, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, and finally India. The eclipse will end at sunset over the Bay of Bengal. Detailed information on the eclipse and on the path of the eclipse shadow of the moon can be obtained from the NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Eclipse Home Page provided by Fred Espenak.

The Visible Imaging System (VIS) on the earth-orbiting Polar spacecraft of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center is fortuitously positioned to observe the progress of the moon's shadow across Earth's sunlit face during the eclipse. This simulation shows the expected motion of the moon's shadow across the Earth as observed from the position of the Polar spacecraft.

Eclipse Simulation

Eclipse simulation 11 August 1999 (352x352, 388 kBytes)

Earth Camera Eclipse Movies (GIF^TM format)

• 11 August 1999 Eclipse - (330x330, Red w/ map, 2.9 MBytes)
• 11 August 1999 Eclipse - (330x330, Red w/o map, 2.7 MBytes)
• 11 August 1999 Eclipse - (330x330, Blue w/ map, 2.6 MBytes)
• 11 August 1999 Eclipse - (330x330, Blue w/o map, 2.4 MBytes)
• 11 August 1999 Eclipse - (495x450, Red w/ map, 6.1 MBytes)
• 11 August 1999 Eclipse - (495x450, Red w/o map, 5.4 MBytes)
• 11 August 1999 Eclipse - (495x450, Blue w/ map, 4.9 MBytes)
• 11 August 1999 Eclipse - (495x450, Blue w/out map, 4.6 MBytes)

Sample Eclipse Images

The VIS Earth Camera which is sensitive to ultraviolet light will be observing the eclipse in real time. The images of the eclipse will be similar to the two Earth Camera images at the bottom of this web page. Because of operational constraints of the season, the VIS "Low" Resolution Camera will not be operating during the eclipse. The VIS Earth Camera images will provided here automatically and will be continuously updated. Press the reload button on your browser to update the VIS image. Partial movies will be made as time permits and a final overall movie will be made as soon as possible after the sequence is finished. Movies from the last eclipse observed by the VIS are included at the bottom of this page. That eclipse occurred on 26 February 1998 and the movies from this sequence of images continue to be among the most requested items on the VIS web site.

26 February 1998 Solar Eclipse Shadow
Visible Imaging System/Polar Spacecraft
The University of Iowa

A solar eclipse occurred on 26 February, 1998 beginning at 1547 UT and continuing until 1909 UT. The path of eclipse's shadow began near the equator in the southern Pacific Ocean west of South America, progressed across the northern most tip of South America, crossed through the southern Caribbean Islands near Montserrat and ended over the Atlantic Ocean. The southeastern United States experienced a partial eclipse. From southern Florida nearly 50% of the sun's disk was blocked by the Moon.

The Visible Imaging System (VIS) on the Earth orbiting Polar spacecraft of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center observed the shadow of the solar eclipse from an altitude of 50,000 km above Earth's northern hemisphere. The VIS employed both the Earth Camera that is sensitive predominately to the ultraviolet atmospheric emissions at 130.4 nm and the Low Resolution Camera with filters that are sensitive to the wavelengths 360.1 nm and 317.3 nm. The Earth Camera has a field-of-view of 20° x 20°, while the Low Resolution Camera has a field-of-view of 6° x 6°. The Earth Camera obtained global views of the Earth throughout the eclipse while the Low Resolution Camera acquired magnified views of the Moon's shadow on Earth. At the beginning of the eclipse, the shadow was over the horizon from the view point of the Polar spacecraft. At approximately 1715 UT, the shadow crossed the horizon and begin its 2 hour march to the sunset terminator. Real time Polar data coverage was from 1620 UT to 2010 UT. Real time images were available at this web site within minutes of their exposure.

Eclipse Movies and Animations

QuickTime^TM

• 26 Feb 98 Eclipse - All Three Cameras (3,025 kB, 12.9 sec, 300 x 300)
• 26 Feb 98 Eclipse - All Three Cameras (11,620 kB, 12.9 sec, 450 x 450)
• 26 Feb 98 Eclipse - All Three Cameras (7,394 kB, 4.2 sec, 450 x 450)
• 26 Feb 98 Eclipse - Earth Camera (1,840 kB, 688 x 486)
• 26 Feb 98 Eclipse - Earth Camera with coastline map (1,962 kB, 4.2 sec, 300 x 300)
• 26 Feb 98 Eclipse - Simultaneous Earth and Low Resolution Movie (1,504 kB)

GIF^TM Animations

• 26 Feb 98 Eclipse - All Three Cameras (1,850 kB, 300 x 300)
• 26 Feb 98 Eclipse - Earth Camera (444 kB, 300 x 300)
• 26 Feb 98 Eclipse - Visible Camera Total Ozone Filter (859 kB, 300 x 300)
• 26 Feb 98 Eclipse - Visible Camera Surface Albedo Filter (909 kB, 300 x 300)

A Snapshot of the Moon's Shadow as Seen By VIS at about 12:30 CST

All data and images are provided courtesy of Dr. Louis A. Frank and Dr. John B. Sigwarth at the University of Iowa.

Any use of these images or data beyond viewing them directly from this WWW page must include this acknowledgement to Dr. Louis A. Frank, The University of Iowa and NASA.

This page is located at: http://vis.physics.uiowa.edu/vis/vis-data/examples/eclipses/

Last Modified: Friday, 20-Sep-2024 02:24:32 CDT

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