Solar Eclipse- January 15,2010

A little Gyan from me what i know about the solar ecllipse.

This set of solar eclipses repeat approximately every 177 days and 4 hours at alternating nodes of the moon's orbit.

The solar eclipse of January 15, 2010 is an annular eclipse of the Sun.

What is Solar eclipse?
A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby totally or partially obscuring Earth's view of the Sun.

What is Annular Solar Eclipse? An annular solar eclipse occurs when the Moon's apparent diameter is smaller than the Sun, causing the sun to look like an annulus (ring), blocking most of the Sun's light.

Why 15 January 2010 is special?

This is the longest annular solar eclipse of the millennium and the longest until December 23, 3043, with a maximum length of 11 mins and 7.8 seconds. (The solar eclipse of January 4, 1992 was longer, at 11 minutes, 41 seconds, occurring in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.) It is seen as annular within a narrow stretch of 300 km (190 mi) width across Central Africa, Maldives, South Kerala (India), South Tamil Nadu (India), North Sri Lanka, parts of Burma and parts of China.It is visible as a partial eclipse in much of Africa, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

Path and timing details of the eclipse.

The eclipse starts at the Central African Republic, traverses Cameroon, Congo and Uganda, passes through Nairobi, Kenya, and enters the Indian Ocean and reaches its greatest eclipse.

After that it enters Maldives, where it would be the longest on land with 10.8 minutes of viewing. This makes the tiny islands of Maldives the best spot for viewing this eclipse from land. The annular Eclipse at Male', the capital city of Maldives starts at 12:20:20 hrs and ends 12:30:06 hrs Maldives local time (UTC+5). This is also the longest duration of any city having an international airport in the eclipse track.

At approx 13:20 IST, the annular solar eclipse enters India at Thiruvananthapuram(Trivandrum), Kerala and exits India at Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu. The eclipse is viewable for 10.4 minutes in India. After Rameswaram, it enters Sri Lanka at Delft Island, exits at Jaffna in Sri Lanka, crosses the Bay of Bengal and re-enters India in Mizorum, to end on the in Sino-Burmese border.

Visit http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEplot/SEplot2001/SE2010Jan15A.GIF for a detail information of the 15 Jan 2010 eclipse.