What signs did Muscovites see in a solar eclipse: from a sickle to “fiery fountains”

MK readers and amateur astronomers shared their impressions of observing the eclipse

All of Moscow admired the solar eclipse on Tuesday. Scientists have already called the event a real astronomical holiday, because the last time the Sun “arranged” such a show for the inhabitants of the capital was only five years ago – in other years the spectacle was hidden from earthlings by clouds. The MK correspondent watched the partial eclipse along with everyone else.

Recall that the Moon began to creep onto the solar disk as early as 12.24 Moscow time.

“A piece of the Sun has already closed,” one of the observers wrote to us. “We see it through an old floppy disk.”

“Saw the sickle! Now we are waiting a bit and we are already going to the presentation of the maximum, ”wrote an MK subscriber on social networks.

Everyone was waiting for the maximum, which was “appointed” at 13:38. It was a real luck that it fell just in time for the lunch break, and therefore, armed with the necessary improvised means, the people poured out into the street. We observed through old floppy disks, through smoked glasses, through welding helmets. Someone brought old x-rays to work and watched the eclipse through their lungs and broken limbs.

Residents of high-rise buildings, office workers unanimously poured out onto the technical floors, under the roof, and watched from there, tearing out black glasses that stained white hoodies from each other.

As previously reported, the Moon covered 71 percent of the solar disk for Muscovites, but the maximum phase of the eclipse – 86% – was visible in the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug.

Astronomers with amateur telescopes observed the eclipse a little differently.

– We gathered at the site of the House of Culture “Russia” in Serpukhov and gathered up to a hundred local residents for the so-called sidewalk observations, – shared with us a member of the local club “Astronomers of Serpukhov” Dmitry Plyasov. We have two telescopes. Through one of them, at 60x magnification in red light, we observe not the surface of the Sun itself, but its atmosphere (or chromosphere), which extends 500 kilometers above the surface of the star. Now we are just seeing how the Moon crawls onto the disk of our star, and solar prominences are very clearly visible against its black background, they resemble real fiery fountains.

In another telescope, we observe the eclipse in the optical range through a filter that only lets in 1/10,000 of the sunlight. A feature of such an observation is lunar craters, which are clearly visible in the lens, and on the Sun itself – sunspots, on which the lunar disk is approaching.

This is for amateur observations. In general, solar eclipses are also of interest to professional astronomers. According to them, professionals test the theory of the motion of the moon and even Einstein’s theory of relativity.

So, the solar eclipse went off with a bang, but astronomers do not recommend relaxing. After all, after him, already on November 8, a total lunar eclipse starts, which will be visible in Asia, South America, North America, Australia and some regions of Northern and Eastern Europe.