Total Eclipse

[jack.h...@gmail.com]

The media helpfully (!) explains that the Moon is passing in front of the Sun.  Well I never.

My first eclipse was 9th July 1945 a 65% partial from my location in Norfolk.  I was 6½ years old at the time and was easily able to understand what was happening.  Mum had smoked some glass as a viewer.  When the eclipse was over, I was upset and began to cry!

Mum was intensely curious about many things, and I thank here for passing on that curiosity to me.  But she had left school at 15 with the minimal of scientific education.  She was amazingly tolerant over my persistent questions.  Mum and I often had to find things out together.

But that July day almost 79 years ago, when the Moon had cleared the Sun, I asked the impossible question:  "Mum, why can't we see the Moon now?"

Jack

[jack.h...@gmail.com]

 "Mum, why is the eclipse in the evening?"

"Ah, the TV planners often show things like football matches when they can get the most viewers in Europe. 
That was why the eclipse was arranged to be in an evening"

Jack :-)

[jack.h...@gmail.com]

And now forgive me for being a cynic!!!

https://c.files.bbci.co.uk/F3FC/production/_133106426_crop_desktop_b3da5d0ec9a29f044e181525b1711bc8b7ceb694.jpg

Jack

[Metman2012]

The thought had crossed my mind....

[jack.h...@gmail.com]

I think it's a Boeing 737 silhouetted in plan view, i.e. directly overhead.  Nowhere was the eclipse directly overhead.

I then used the knowledge that the aircraft would have been flying at a height of 35 to 39,000 feet and with a bit of simple trigonometry, the apparent angular size was too big for the sun/moon diameter of about 0.5 degrees. I'm not particularly into statistics, but the chance of an aircraft happened to pass directly in front of the sun during the moment of total eclipse is infinitesimally small. 

I think you people know that I am a retired airline pilot.  In a long career, I only once saw a distant aircraft pass directly in front of the sun (as it happened, I was on the ground at a cricket match!)   And on that occasion, of course, the sun wasn't eclipsed.

So the odds are so long that I have to be suspicious about that 'photo'.

And here's 'me' on a mobility scooter.  Believe that if you like:-)

Jack