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9:27 a.m. I love this photo: Dutch tourists cheer as they view a solar eclipse in front of Apollo Temple in the Turkish Mediterranean coastal resort of Side, Turkey, AP.

6:01 a.m.

NASA image

I didn't intend to wake up for the eclipse, but I did anyway. Exploratorium is broadcasting video that's a mix of four different telescope feeds, and it will be archived.

Eclipselive.com has a webcam from Side, Turkey, and I'm getting screen captures. Totality was a black screen, not much to show. The image above was saved at 6:01 a.m. EST, just as the sun emerged from the moon's shadow. At right, one minute later. Below, the sun moves away at 6:14.

6:24: I'm viewing eclipse photos from the AP feed at the Journal over the Web. I've added NASA's image of totality from Side on top -- what the webcam didn't catch.

6:38 This is a big deal in astrology.

6:45: Backing into this, but here's the caption AP is moving with its eclipse photos (they're from the telescope feed):

... total solar eclipse captured in Turkey's Mediterranean town of Side. The last such eclipse in November 2003 was best viewed from Antarctica, said Alex Young, a NASA scientist involved in solar research. Total eclipses are rare because they require the tilted orbits of the sun, moon and earth to line up exactly so that the moon obscures the sun completely. The next total eclipse will occur in 2008.

7:12 AP photographers file from the path of the eclipse:

A man wears old Yugoslav army cap as he watches solar eclipse in Belgrade's observatory.

Accra, Ghana.

Amman, Jordan

An Iraqi man watches a solar eclipse through a tinted piece of glass, in Baghdad

Kiev, Ukraine, through a CD.

A family views the eclipse from the town of Abomey, Benin. Today's eclipse blocks the sun in highly populated areas, including West Africa, where governments have scrambled to educate people about the dangers of looking directly at the sun without proper eye protection.

8:00 Soulclipse, the festival:

The central line of totality passes close to the famous Mediterranean resort city of Antalya, known as the 'Turkish Rivera". Right over Manavgat a city in the Anatolia province. This region of Turkey has a mild climate during the winter and viewing conditions in the early spring towards the end of March should be excellent. The festival will take place in Paradise Canyon, which is set on the banks of the beautiful Koprulu Canyon river in a national park approximately 75 km north east of Antalya city.

A report by "Patricia" in the forum says the stage collapsed in the rain (earlier in the week, apparently). Regrouping (and perhaps rebuilding) seems to be under way.

The main stage has completely collapsed. Its totally destroyed. Useless.
The entire stage, sound system, everything! Gone. Probably about 200,000Euros, worth of equipment.
It rained extremely hard, (It has been for the last 2 weeks but the organizers said they were afraid to tell anyone, cause maybe no one would come) We also heard the weather report predicts clouds for the eclipse : (
Okay, back to the stage: Apparently, they didnt have the correct support frames to hold up the stage, and after the heavy rain, it all just collapsed. It was really scary. 2 people are now in the hospital, one in critical condition.

Send your prayers that they both recover!
Its very chaotic here. A rumour has t that the locals are also very unhappy with the way the Israeli organizers have been treating them.

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3 Comments

giselle said:

What a marvelous post -- thank you for shedding light on a festival that got zero conventional media coverage.

My friend sent a message from Soulclipse--said it was the worst case scenario. Collapsed stage, mud, freezing cold, soaking ground, bad moods.

But the sun brings forgiveness and rejeuvenation and here we are, it's a brand new day!

Link | March 29, 2006 6:10 PM
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Hany said:

Nice site and pictures

Link | March 30, 2006 3:07 AM
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Sheila said:

I'm glad you both like what happens here. Giselle, although the first reports out of Soulclipse are of extreme pre-festival chaos, later comments in that forum suggest the sun came out, bands are playing on a second stage, and the music is pumping -- a fitting way to emerge from an eclipse. It's all an adventure when you're young.

Link | March 30, 2006 10:43 AM
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