Long
Beach Island, NJ, USA
General: Time 17h 47m 13s, Alt. 26 degrees, Saros
122, magnitude 54.4 % (Max 72.32 %)
Partial Xmas Eclipse from Long Beach Island, New
Jersey By Patrick Poitevin
Short of holidays and of course money, mainly due to the move from Belgium to England, prevented us from travelling to the Antarctic eclipse of February, Patagonia and Alaska in July. But nothing could hold us from the Xmas eclipse of last 25 December 2000.
Fred Espenak and Pat Totten invited Joanne, the kids Michael and Laura, and I to their beach house on Long Beach Island in New Jersey. A nice combination for our vacation which started in Miami. After a few days Miami beach we stayed and entertained ourselves a week in Orlando, flew to Philadelphia and drove to New Jersey for the eclipse. A drop of temperature of course. Snow and ice which was never seen on the east coast. And as Fred mentioned earlier in this SENL, temperatures under zero. Something of which we were not foreseen in regard of cloths.
A beautiful sunset the night before was an indication of a clear sky. We never expected such a wonderful perfect sky. Preparations for the partial eclipse began early in the morning. We brought one of our Celestron C90, a binocular each for Michael and Laura and Jo tested her brand new Camcorder 25X Sony. Of course all foreseen with sun filters. The Xmas eclipse shades of Rainbow Symphony brought each of us the necessary Xmas atmosphere. From Learning Technology we just purchased the Sunspotter. A wonderful instrument. See as well the test report in the SENL. Any one, including a visiting policeman, could follow and monitor the eclipsed sun on the Sunspotter. A must for every eclipse chasers.
As mentioned above, the sky was perfect blue, but cold, oh, so cold. Hands were frozen, nose was fragile and seemed to break, but the partial eclipse was perfect. The atmosphere was wonderful and Fred and Pat, together with son Russell spoiled us all with warm drinks and lots of jokes. Fred entertaining with his photographic skills. I am looking forward seeing them on his WebPages. I can not wait.
The sunspot presence on the sun was wonderful. We could easily observe them disappearing and of course after maximum reappearing. Due to the cold we did not make any attempt of timing, measuring and calculating the size of the sunspots. Something what would be more interesting with a nicer temperature? Despite the temperature, the missing totality, this partial eclipse was one of the most fascinating we ever had. The kids enjoyed it very much, we had a wonderful atmosphere, the pictures were great, and ... we had the best company we could have ever dreamt of to observe a partial eclipse. After the eclipse, Pat and Fred surprised us all with a wonderful Christmas dinner.
The eclipse was a nice preparation for the Africa total eclipse in June. Joanne, Michael, Laura and I are ready for this one. The first total for both Michael and Laura, but we are sure it will not their last. After the eclipse, we drove back to Pennsylvania, stayed and travelled through Amish Country and our vacation ended in New York after New Years Eve on Time Square.
Thank you Pat and Fred, we had a great time and a wonderful eclipse. Lets do this over one day, one time, ..., wherever!!! Report by PP
Picture by Patrick Poitevin
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