There
have lately been two solar eclipses in Cape York.
It is a rare astronomical
phenomenon where the
moon passes across the surface of the sun (when watched
from the Earth).
It does not happen altogether that often, world wide there are only a few every year
that are possible to see from land surface (since the
oceans cover 70% of the Earth's total surface, leaving only 30% for
continents).
In a given place it
definitely is a very rare event, and most people don't
dream about seeing one where they live during their lifetime.
Now consider our luck.
There
hadn't been any solar
eclipses in north Queensland for 1,300
years.
Then there was the eclipse
2012 which
was a total eclipse.
The 2012 eclipse, Mareeba.
The 2012 eclipse
was
already an event of a lifetime, or rather 10 considering the 1,300
years.
As if that was not enough, we
had a next solar eclipse
only six months later!
Now that is really rare anywhere in the world!!!
The second one - the 2013
eclipse - was
on the 10. May 2013,
and it was an annular
eclipse,
meaning it does not go totally dark, it's more like a ring (on the
photo below though the background would have been dark thanks to the
filter, if it wasn't that a cloud decided to filter it for me instead).
The 2013 eclipse,
Musgrave.
I am not an eclipse
chaser but I made sure I saw them both.
How would you not when they are almost in your back yard???
And that said I drove almost 1000km in total, and they were both fantastic to see
:-)
NEWThe Solar Eclipse 2012
page has been moved here (and the link to the next, 2013 one is in the
end of the page):
It's one
of them rare events
that some people sleep through but others can travel across the globe
to see, and it's coming
to Cape York
peninsula!
There have been so much talk about it, accommodation is all booked out
and special events have been planned around the rare happening.
But what is a solar eclipse?
It's when the moon is
passing between
the Earth and the sun, leaving a shadow so large on the Earth that the
daylight disappears in places where it can be seen. You can
watch the moon
gradually gliding across the sun, going through
different phases known as Baily's Beads, Diamond Ring Effect and
Totality.
When Can the Solar Eclipse
2012 Be Seen?
It's between 5.45 and 7.40am on the
14. November
2012 local time (Brisbane
time,
UTC +10). In the most of the rest of the world it is still the 13.
November.
Where Can the Solar Eclipse
2012 Be Seen?
It can be
seen only in the southern
parts of Cape York Peninsula.
The centre
of it passes
through between Port
Douglas
and Mossman
in the north and Mt Molloy
and Mt
Carbine in the south, then moves right to the Palmer River Roadhouse,
and
then continues from there across some very little inhabited land
inluding the northern end of Palmer
River Goldfields west to Pormpuraaw.
But you don't have to be
in the centre
to see it.
The whole area it covers is a broader belt the northern edge of which
passes across Wujal Wujal,
Laura and Hann River Roadhouse,
while in
the south you can see it as far as in Innisfail and Atherton Tablelands
in the east, and Kowanyama in the west.
NEW Read here what the2012 Solar
Eclipse was
like!
The 2012 Solar
Eclipse
At first
it seemed we had
everything against us.
It's the Wet Season in
the wettest
part of Australia.
The weather prediction for the week looked hopeless.
Every other
day in the week had
sun and more or less clear skies, but Wednesday
the 14th of November had clouds over Cape York and on the
coast
of far north Queensland it was predicted to rain.
With
chances
looking so slim we decided it needs to be a dry place and headed to
Mareeba.
There were low morning clouds above the horizon but the sun rose out of
them in no time, and for
the rest of
the time we enjoyed the skies perfectly cloudless!
Watching the 2012 eclipse in
Mareeba,
Australia.
Partial Phases of the 2012
Solar Eclipse
Almost immediately the moon
started moving
across the surface of the sun,
but like you see on the photo above, you cannot even see it unless you
use solar eclipse glasses, or a solar filter for your camera (and you
must not look into the sun without proper protection anyway).
The
partial phase.
As the moon moved further and further in, the light started dimming and you
could see
a few stars.
Towards
the end of the partial phase.
Temperatures dropped.. Birds
went
quiet and started flying to their roosting grounds.
Closer
to the total phase.
Total Phases of the 2012 Solar
Eclipse
An hour
later, quite
suddenly, it went into the so-called Diamond Ring phase. That's when the light drops to darkness.
The
photos above look dark because I was using a solar filter on my camera,
but the photos below were taken with no filter - that's how dark it actually was!
The
diamond Ring phase, 2012 solar
eclipse.
After the Diamond Ring comes the Baily's Beads phase, where the very
last of the sun's surface is seen through the moon's valleys (not so
good a pic but I didn't
want to spend
the whole time playing with the camera - I've read some
photographers saying "I have never actually SEEN an eclipse").
Baily's
Beads just before the total
eclipse.
And then it enters the phase of totality. It is so beautiful, even
emotional, and you look around and everything is in darkness - a strange, eerie darkness,
different from
the darkness of a night.
Total
solar eclipse.
That is the beauty of a total solar eclipse - a
partial one never
enters the darkness phases.
You could see this eclipse from many other parts of Australia, but
anywhere south of Innisfail (and north of Cedar Bay on
the peninsula)
it was only a partial one.
There is also a next
solar eclipse
coming up in Cape York, but it's not a total one.
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This site uses British
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Australia.
Disclaimer:
Although
best efforts have been made to ensure that all the information on this
website is correct, this site is not to be blamed should there be a
mistake.
This is the ORIGINAL Cape York Travel Guide run Locally on the Peninsula.