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Solar Eclipse July 22, 2009

July 21, 2009 | Learning Series, News | 993 views

Partial Eclipse June 22, 2009

There will be a global phenomenon tomorrow, July 22, 2009, a solar eclipse passing in Eastern Asia and the Pacific Region. In the Philippines, PAGASA states that the eclipse will start at exactly 8:33:01 a.m. Manila time and will end at 11:01:51 a.m. The solar eclipse will be at its peak at 9:43 a.m. The solar eclipse can be witnessed in Metro Manila, Calayan Island, Laoag City, Tuguegarao City, Baguio City, Pampanga, Puerto Princesa in Palawan, Lucena City, Naga City, Iloilo, Cebu, Zamboanga, Sulu, Davao, General Santos City, all over the Philippines basically.

Although partial in a sense (here in the Philippines), this phenomenon is still a sight to behold. The previous Total Solar Eclipse with the umbra (epicenter) here in General Santos City, Philippines was in March 18th,  1988.

UPDATE : June 22, 2009 – Photos taken around 10:00 am (Manila Time) in General Santos City, Philippines

Partial Solar Eclipse

Partial Solar Eclipse - Taken with Infrared Filter R72

Partial Solar Eclipse - Taken with Infrared Filter R72

A WORD OF WARNING : NEVER EVER LOOK DIRECTLY AT THE SUN! It can burn the retina of your eyes and can blind you permanently!

Local Timings of solar eclipse July 2009 as provided by NASA:

Singapore - Singapore – 08:40:51 AM to 09:43:55 AM
Myanmar - Yangon – 06:31:39 AM to 08:35:40 AM
Philippines - Manila – 08:33:01 AM to 11:01:51 AM
Malaysia - Kuala Lumpur – 07:29:00 AM to 08:48:44 AM
Thailand - Bangkok – 07:06:48 AM to 09:08:44 AM
Hong Kong - Victoria – 08:14:30 AM to 10:45:56 AM
Vietnam - Ho Chi Minh City – 07:17:28 AM to 09:15:43 AM
Brunei - Bandar Seri Begawan –

08:48:00 AM to 10:22:56 AM
Cambodia - Phnom Penh – 07:13:58 AM to 09:13:28

Predictive path of the July 22, 2009 Solar Eclipse:

How to photograph a Solar Eclipse:

In general, taking photos of the solar eclipse doesn’t need special equipment. With the digital age of today, you can find a camera almost everyway you look. Here’s a list of basic things to remember if you want to record the event:

F-Stop : use an aperture ranging from f5.6 to f16 for DSLRs, for point-and-shoot digicams the maximum aperture would be around f8, that will still do

Shutter : Depending on your choice of effect, all shutter speeds will produce nice results ranging from 1/500 up to several secons. The slower the speed the more corona, faster speeds will show solar prominences. Get as much photos you can get since the eclipse doesn’t last that long.

ISO : Since the sun produces a very bright light, setting the lowest ISO would be best.

Lens : If you want to shoot a ’sun only’ frame, use long lenses from 400-800mm. The sun will look fairly small on a 35mm camera with a short focal length lens.

Tripod : A must for those who use long focal length lenses, this should hold your camera in place and also should help minimize camera shake and blurry photos should you opt to use slower shutter speeds.

Other things to consider:

• Turn the autofocus off and set the lens to focus to infinity. Its difficult to autofocus at the sun. DON’T LOOK DIRECTLY AT THE SUN EVEN IN THE CAMERA’S VIEWFINDER, digicams on the other hand have LCD displays, which are good, since you can look at the image without directly looking at the sun itself. Some DSLRs also have a ‘live view’ mode, use them.

• Turn off the camera flash, you don’t need them

• Use Manual control of your camera’s exposure (turn that knob to M) and also use manual focus as mentioned above. Your camera’s autofocus and autoexposure will just be a pain to use.

• NEVER EVER LOOK DIRECTLY AT THE SUN! It can burn the retina of your eyes and can blind you permanently!

Here’s a table of exposure settings that can be useful in photographing solar eclipses:

Credits on exposure settings : www.mreclipse.com

A WORD OF WARNING (Again!) : NEVER EVER LOOK DIRECTLY AT THE SUN! It can burn the retina of your eyes and can blind you permanently!

It said the safest method to view the eclipse is by indirect viewing “like projecting the image with a pinhole camera. The weather bureau, meanwhile, cautioned spectators to avoid directly looking at the eclipse without safety eye devices. It said people can cover their eyes with X-ray films, sun glasses, smoked glass and photographic films and negatives.

Disclaimer :  The author will NOT be responsible for ANY unfortunate circumstances that may arise from the use of information from this article. You are solely responsible for your actions in witnessing this event.

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