Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1954-06-28
Moons Eclipse Of Sun
To Be Seen Here Briefly
Washington Area Will Get
About 70 Per Cent of Shadow

The moon, approximately 100000
miles from the earth and moving
hlough the sky at about 1000 miles
an nour. casts o cone-shaped shadow
$4,000 miles long when it comes be-
tween the sun and the earth shortly
after dawn Wednesday
This planet will Aie in the last 5000
mics Of this Shadow-as result Of
which the sun win be blotted out COM
pietely along path approximately 81
miles wide extending through South
DAKOTA, Minnesota, Wisconsin, north
ern Michigan. Lake Superior. the south
err end Of Hudson Bay. the North At
lsntiC, Europe and Asia to end at sum
set in northern India.
This total eclipse will not be par
ticuiarly spectacular, as eclipSes go.
The greatest duration of totality,
WITCH will be somewhere in Scandina-
via, will be only little more than
tive minutes. In the United States
it will last only a little more than
minute. But probably no eclipse in
history will have more observers or
more attention from scientists equipped
with marvellous new observing inStru-
Llents developed since the war. 1t is
ono of the few eclipSes in history which
val pass over thickly populated terri
tory, including the cities of st. Paul
AID Minneapolis, and which can be
observed partially over greater part
of tie northeastern United States.
For Washingtonians the shadow Of
the moon will starr to fall over the
earth at sos am. The sun will be
half covered at 6:57 and the eclipse
will end at 7:50. At its greatest the
eclir.Se will be about 70 per cent in
Washington. This means that 70 per
cent Of the suns diameter, will be COW
cred by the shadow. Since the shadow
Of tie moon is curved actually about
hal: the sun will be obscured.
The eclipse will be seen 80 per cent
or better from North or South Dakota.
Wisconsin, Iowa and Nebraska. The
greatest duration will be minutes and
IS seconds of the southern coast Of
Norway.
The event naturally will be gala
occasion for amateur photographers.
The following instructions have been
sent out by the Hayden Planetarium
of the American Museum Of Natural
history:
Cameras should be tripod mounted.
An exposure of one second at f4.5 on
fast black and white films with ~ for
color will yield the best visual repro
duction of the total eclipse, recording
also the faint horizon Elimination and
landscape SilhouetteS. Telephoto lenses
must be worked wide open on motion
picture cameras operated at normal
taking speeds, starting the scenes APP
proximately 20 seconds before totality
is scheduled to begin. This will enable
capturing the elusive Bailey'S beads
stages of the phenomenon.
(There are titanic mountain ranges
on the moon, ranging up to six miles
in altitude. If one Of these ranges
happens to be on the edge Of the moon
the sun will shine through its deep
valleys a fraction of a second before
the eclipse reaches totality. The result
will be string of red bead-like forms.
irregularly spaced, on the eastern edge
of the shadow. These are Bailey'S
beads, named for an English astrono-
ner who discovered them about CEN
fury ago.
observers in the eastern half Of the
country, where the eclipse reaches var
ious magnitudes of partial observation.
can obtain individual or SerieS-rype
photos, the latter consisting of series
Of phase images, by shooting exactly
every five minutes on the same mega
tive"