East Asia’s big partial solar eclipse of January 6, 2019
A 62% solar eclipse will be visible from Japan, Korea, China and Russia
2019 starts in style when a big partial solar eclipse closes out the end of the first week of January.
In the first of six eclipses in 2019, the Moon will pass in front of some of the Sun to cause a partial solar eclipse as seen from Siberia in Russia, northeast China, Mongolia, the Korean Peninsula, and Japan. Here is an excellent Google Map of the path of the partial eclipse.
Partial solar eclipses are very dangerous events to view with the naked eye, and can only be safely viewed through solar eclipse safety glasses.
Where will eclipse-chasers be?
Japan, China, and Siberia. Expect photos from Jay Pasachoff, a professor of astronomy at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, and Chair of the International Astronomical Union Working Group on Solar Eclipses. He will be at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) in Mitaka, outside Tokyo, for a 29% eclipse peaking at 10:05 a.m. local time. “I’ll just be taking pictures with a 400 mm lens and of the image in the NAOJ’s telescopes that I know will be trained on the eclipse,” he says. Meanwhile, Jörg Schoppmeyer will observe it from the 35th Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival in northeast China. He’ll see a maximum 37% partial solar eclipse at 08:52 a.m. local time.
Nobody else is going to attempt it.”
Watching the eclipse from the ‘Pole of Cold’
Xavier Jubier from Paris, France, and a member of International Astronomical Union (IAU) Working Group on Solar Eclipses will travel to Oymyakon, Yakutia, Sakha Republic, a thousand kilometers from Yakutsk in northeastern Siberia, Earth’s coldest inhabited place, it’s often known as the ‘Pole of Cold’. “The eclipse occurs just above the horizon in temperatures around -50°C/-60°F or lower,” says Jubier. “Nobody else is going to attempt it.” Jubier will see a 60% partial solar eclipse just after sunrise at 11:29 a.m. Wrap-up warm, Xavier!
