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Space Science

Total Solar Eclipse Bedazzles Northern Australians 52

Posted by Soulskill from the kangaroos-unimpressed dept.
Penurious Penguin writes "Tuesday at 6:38AM (2038 GMT Tuesday) thousands of Australians witnessed a solar eclipse in northern Queensland, where it was the first total eclipse in over 1000 years for the specific region. The most prominent view occurred in Cairns, while elsewhere in locations such as New Zealand, parts of Indonesia and Australia, partial eclipses were visible. Totality lasted approximately two minutes — video and photos can be seen at Universe Today. Scientists are also taking the opportunity to study both land and aquatic wildlife in affected areas."
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Total Solar Eclipse Bedazzles Northern Australians More

Total Solar Eclipse Bedazzles Northern Australians

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  • Bedazzled. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I'd be bedazzled too, if I hadn't seen something for over 1000 years, not because of the view but because of my ripe old age.

  • Clouds (Score:4, Informative)

    by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Wednesday November 14, 2012 @01:39AM (#41977827)

    60000 visitors to a city with a population of only 150000. There was quite a bit of chaos at the beaches.

    Quite the spectacular event except that the wet tropics just entered their summer wet season and this week was the first rain in 6 months. Sadly many of the people actually missed the total eclipse due to cloud cover. However the partial phases should have been seen by all.

  • All I have to say is ... that's FABULOUS! I love things that are bedazzled.

    uh, the 90's called? They want their stuff back. Including your terrible richard simmons impression, for some reason.
    • Just so you know, I'm a huge fan of Simmons and was wearing leg-warmers while I wrote that summary. When I first started submitting stories to Slashdot, I was over 1000lbs. Then I found Richard, an industrial sized box of Ritalin, and whole bunch of 8-Tracks.

      • Just so you know, I'm a huge fan of Simmons and was wearing leg-warmers while I wrote that summary. When I first started submitting stories to Slashdot, I was over 1000lbs. Then I found Richard, an industrial sized box of Ritalin, and whole bunch of 8-Tracks.

        I started reading your post, then I continued.

        Don't keep me in suspense! I need to know what happened to those 8-tracks you put on ritalin!

  • I was there (Score:3)

    by Twigmon ( 1095941 ) on Wednesday November 14, 2012 @01:41AM (#41977839) Homepage

    I was there, it was amazing. Took a few photos: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151237864341768.486780.661406767 [facebook.com]

    • Re:Total Solar Eclipse Bedazzles Northern Australi (Score:5, Funny)

      by Farmer Tim ( 530755 ) on Wednesday November 14, 2012 @02:02AM (#41977919) Journal

      There are more than three. In fact, the Bureau of Meteorology's phone lines were jammed for almost two minutes with calls from Far North Queensland (or Effin' Q as it's usually called) complaining that the sun had gone out early and blaming the southern states for confusing it with their newfangled daylight savings time. The calls stopped when it came back, of course, but they vowed to remember this at the next federal election...

      • Considering the stories I heard from my dad about the drapes fading (back in '89, I think it was), that story is far too plausible to dismiss.

        There were, if I remember correctly, also worries about a population explosion due to daylight savings. The stories I hear about Queenslanders just baffle me (can anyone really be that dumb?), and I lived there for about 11 years (during which time, I heard most of the stories).

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dbIII ( 701233 )

          Considering the stories I heard from my dad about the drapes fading

          That one was a semi-joke by a politician who had the tactic of going on with gibberish for three minutes at a time so that TV news crews would have to stop and change film, which made him impossible to pin down in an interview until the days of videotape. He wasn't dumb, he said dumb things but he was an evil manipulative bastard that even set up his own fake Church group (the Logos foundation) just so that he could pretend he had God on hi

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Considering the stories I heard from my dad about the drapes fading (back in '89, I think it was), that story is far too plausible to dismiss.

          The drapes fading due to daylight savings is certainly a plausible effect which can be understood intuitively.

          People coming home from work often close their drapes to help keep the heat out. During daylight savings, they would be coming home with an additional hour of sunlight than in non-DST times. Thus, daylight savings has the effect of increasing the amount of sunlight to which the drapes are exposed by by an average of one hour per day of daylight savings observed. Over many years, this very well could

          • Why wouldn't you leave the drapes closed while you are at work? I'm more likely to open the drapes when I get home, because I want to be able to see out, while obviously when I'm gone that doesn't matter and keeping the house cool(-er) is more important. If I left the drapes open all day, closing them for the last couple hours of daylight to try to keep the heat out is a perfect example of closing the barn door after the horses have escaped.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      All three of them

      This.

      The area in question is Northern Queensland, no-one, not even the Queenslanders consider them to be fully human, let alone Australian.

      Scientists theorise that most of them swam across from New Zealand.

  • Now i have to wait another 1000 years.
    • Don't worry you will see a much longer solar eclipse when global warming strong effects start to come on stage.

  • Better pictures (Score:5, Interesting)

    by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Wednesday November 14, 2012 @03:37AM (#41978243) Journal
    I like these pictures [wsj.com] better than the ones in the article. They do a better job showing how dark it gets outside.

  • Wednesday, not Tuesday (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Someone forgot about the international date line. It may have been Tuesday GMT, but it was Wednesday local.

  • Not everyone took precautions.. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ausrob ( 864993 ) on Wednesday November 14, 2012 @09:31AM (#41979927)
    "Doctors say thousands have suffered permanent eye damage from looking at total solar eclipse":
    http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health-fitness/doctors-say-thousands-have-suffered-permanent-eye-damage-from-looking-at-total-solar-eclipse/story-fneuzlbd-1226516924022 [news.com.au]
    • After a 38 year gap, parts of the continental US finally experience a total eclipse in 2017. Americans have 5 years to get this right. 5 years to prove we've learned something about eye safety since 1979. Is it so difficult?
      • - Always use eye protection which was designed and certified to be safe for viewing the sun. Do not use sunglasses, floppy disks, Kodachrome film, CDRoms, DVDs, or Pop Tart foil. If you can't afford the $5-15 eclipse shades, go inside and watch it on cable TV. (keep in mind that your c

  • Bedazzled? (Score:3)

    by ddd0004 ( 1984672 ) on Wednesday November 14, 2012 @11:17AM (#41980809)

    "Hey, look a solar eclipse! Wait, why is my jean jacket now covered in rhinestones?"

  • If you've seen one, you've seen 'em all!

  • Tuesday at 6:38AM (2038 GMT Tuesday) thousands of Australians...

    That would be Wednesday at 6:38am in Australia, if it was at 2038 GMT on Tuesday.

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