Nairobi, Kenya.
Many amateur astronomers had the chance to observe the Sunday in the sky East africa, in the summer solstice, a solar eclipse, exceptional for the type “circle of fire”.
This astronomical phenomenonthat only occurs once or twice a year, began shortly after the departure of the sun in the center of the african continent through the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan and north of Ethiopia. You will then move on to Asia and end up in the Pacific ocean, in the south of the island of Guam, to the 09H32 GMT.
In this type of eclipse, the Moon passes in front of the Sun, in alignment with the Earth and hides it partially, but it leaves a visible ring of the sun king, known as “circle of fire”.
In Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, a little to the margin of the better visibility, they were able to observe a partial eclipse. The clouds covered up the precise moment in which the Moon I had to hide the Sun.
Despite this, “it was very exciting,” he told the AFP Susan Murabana, founder with her husband of the educational program “Travelling telescope (the telescope traveling). “I am obsessed with the eclipses. It is one of the things that led me to be interested in the astronomy, “he said.
Installed with its telescope on the roof of a residential neighborhood, the couple shared images of the eclipse with dozens of people, through Facebook and Zoom.
In circumstances normalsurely would have led to the people near lake Magadi (south), where the sky is more clear than in Nairobi.
Displacement
But due to the pandemic coronavirusjourneys into and out of the capital are not allowed for several weeks.
Susan regrets not having been able to do “as always”but she is happy to have “shared” this experience in social networks and promises to “hunt down other” eclipses.
Only 2% of the surface of the Earth is affected by the total phase of the eclipse, and that is what makes it a rare phenomenon.
It is less spectacular than a total eclipse, where the space occupied by the Moon in the sky corresponds exactly to the space occupied by the Sun and causes the night, as was that of Chile, Argentina and Uruguay in July of 2019.
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