Invitation for Solar Eclipse viewing tomorrow morning!

Hello! So tomorrow morning i.e. March 20 there will be a partial Solar eclipse visible from Leiden. The Moon will cover about 84% of the Sun, unless you are in Norway where you’d witness a Total eclipse. Well if you aren’t flying to Norway tonight then the best thing to do is come see this event at the Old Observatory where we have organised a program for the public allowing observations with telescopes, including the one that was recently built with generous crowd-funding. Please don’t look at the Sun with your naked eye as the rays can be damaging even if looked at for only a few seconds. You may not notice it at first but the Infra-red and UV light can damage light-sensitive cells in your eyes. So instead come over to the observatory where we will also provide ‘eclipse glasses’.

Total eclipses are possible because of a nice coincidence – the Sun’s disk is about 400 times bigger than that of the Moon, but also the Sun is 400 times further away than the Moon is from us, so every 18 months or so somewhere on Earth we can witness a total eclipse. At other times and depending on your location you can see partial eclipses such as here in Leiden tomorrow. The observatory is located next door to the Hortus Botanicus and there will be plenty of experts around to answer questions and there is also a talk at 11 a.m(although that’s in Dutch). Here’s the program and you can find more on the facebook page(https://www.facebook.com/events/1548670015385112/):

9:30 door

11:00 lecture by Ir. Felix Bettonvil: solar telescopes and solar eclipses

12:00 end

If you can’t make it then don’t worry you can also watch a live streaming at http://www.space.com/19195-night-sky-planets-asteroids-webcasts.html

Let’s all hope for clear skies and I hope to see many of you there tomorrow!