ECLIPSE OF THE SUN.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 15 July 1925, Page 4

ECLIPSE OF THE SUN.

UN TUESDA NEXT. VISIBLE AT rjNRISE. The rather unusual-pectacle of an eclipse of the sun wift&ke place in. New Zealand on July 2_that js, next Tuesday. Only in the xtrem e north of the North Island wi it be a full eclipse. At Hawera will rise eclipsed, aud the inagn lU i e 0 f the eclipse lier e will be 0.8 O: \at is, about four-fifths of the sun’s \ C e will be covered at maximum. The Government Observa. r y i S sending an expedition to the 2>rth Cape, and Mr. J. T. Ward, tig honorary director of the Wanganui Ojervatory, who was a visitor to Hawer, over the week-end, says that he wa& is ked to accompany the Government Anouomer (Dr. C. E. Adams). He, hoever, is unable to go, and his place g being taken by Mr. T. Allison, also of Wanganui. Th e plan is to o’with the equipment from Auckl a d to Mongonuj by the Clansman, an<. mo tor or drive to the North Cape froirthere. In the Northern Hemisphe>, no ec-lipse is allowed to pass withofc expeditions from all th e leading ob'srva. tories taking park At the icent eclipse in the United States almost every mile of the course of totßty was mapped out and allotted to obsrv, ing parties from the various obseratories and Government institutions. A recent number of Popular Astronoiy, an American publication, containeda, most interesting photograph—that f the women’s astronomy class at Vasst College, the leading women’s univefsit in the States, out in the snow, witi telescope, or spectroscope, or micrometer, or other instrument in hand, while others had their notebooks, all busily observing. Such a class is unknown in our New Zealand University colleges. An eclipse, if a total one, as it was in the States, can give quite a deal oO useful information on the constitution of the sun, on the character of the corona, or the chromosphere, p r the prominences, and the recent eclipse in Australia 1 was used to 'test-the truth of the Einstein hypothesis: that light is deflected when passing any of the larger heavenly bodies such as the sun, or the stars.

Sunrise at Cape Maria Van Diemen, near the North Cape, is given by Dr. Somerville, of the New Zealand Astronomical Society, as at 7h. 2m., the eclipse ending at 9h. '33m. At Wellington it is given as 7h. 10m., the eclipse ending at 9h. 43m, Calculating from this, the times at Hawera would approximate those at Wellington. The sun will rise eclipsed 'at all place g except near the East Cape, where the eclipse will begin just after sunrise. The eclipse will be what is called an annular eclipse: that is, at the ; North Cape, when the moon is directly between us and the sun, it will not exactly cover the sun, but a little ring of the sun (Latin annulus, a ring) will remain visible. When the moon exactly covers the sun we have what is called a total eclipse. The last total eclipse in New Zealand took place in the eighties of last century.