ECLIPSE OF THE SUN

Southland Times, Issue 19459, 26 January 1925, Page 5

ECLIPSE OF THE SUN

AMERICAN OBSERVATIONS. A MAGNIFICENT SPECTACLE. SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF THE PHENOMENON. (By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (Australian and N.Z. Cable Association.) NEW YORK, January 24. (Received January 25, at 7.5 p.m.) The rapidly vanishing streak of darkness was daubed over 40,000 square miles of Canada and United States, in the path of the Celestial shadow occasioned by the eclipse of the sun. The hour of daylight w’as succeeded by twilight, then a few minutes darkness, twilight and daylight again striking the earth at Red Lake, Minnesota. The moon’s shadow, 100 miles wide, swept eastward in a curve at the rate of 4,200 miles per hour to the Atlantic ocean, disappearing into space at a point near the Shetland Islands, after skirting the earth for 3,000 miles. Two minutes was the longest time any one city was covered. On either side of the blackness was a twilight zone 4,500 miles wide, extending north to Labrador and south to the Amazon River. From cities near the locality zone, thousands entered the zone by railroads, which w’ere running special trains. Radio and aviation did much to injprove the study of the phenomenon. Excellent scientific observations were made by scientists at Cornell and Yale Universities, and aboard the Dirigible Los Angeles over the island of Nantucket. First reports of scientific tests with radio at Iron mountain (Michigan), noted a slight increase in volume and clarity. The Radio Corporation of America reported that its tests proved that a short wave-length followed the sun, and the static was not an entirely local condition. The eclipse averaged four seconds later than astronomers calculated. Mercury, Jupiter and Venus were as clearly visible as at night, although the darkness did not equal that of night. Green, gold and scarlet colours splashed the horizon, adding to the spectacle. The corona of the sun was perfect. Baily’s Beads were dancing like drops of a liquid topaz, strung on a sparkling thread hung in the sky. Just a moment before the eclipse became total, as they flickered out, shadow bands floated forth heralding the approach of the awe-inspiring corona. All colours of the spectrum seemed to burst outward from the moon’s dull rim—like flame from a huge blow torch. They gushed and subsided. The astronomers aboard the dirigible Los Angeles (a former German Zeppelin), which lifted a mile closer to the sun at Nantucket, Massachusetts, had a perfect view of the magnificent spectacle unmarred by cloud. The ghostly radiance of the eclipse turned the ocean horizon and clouds into a vivid multi-coloured picture, while observers made photographs of the corona. The spectograph recorded spectrum lines of helium gas. Hydrogen was also recorded. Since both helium and hydrogen are in the outlayers of the sun, possibly when the plates are developed a new element, or secret, will be revealed to science. The shadow bands were photographed for the first time in history.