Total Solar Eclipse in China

I blogged about solar eclipses way back in 2006, about a year before I started traveling to Chengdu. Looking at the map of eclipses, I though that Shanghai may be a good place to visit in 2009. However, since then, I've made seven trips to Chengdu and in 5 weeks, Chengdu will be in the path of totality. My first thought was, "OK, how much are plane tickets at this point?" Then I checked the calendar and our Q2 earnings call is on the following day. That means I have almost zero chance of taking off from work to experience the eclipse. BTW, plane tickets are about $1800.

Here is more info on the upcoming eclipse from NASA. Chengdu is a bit north of the centerline but still in the path. From the map, it looks like Chengdu will get about 3 minutes of totality. Further east, Wuhan is going to be very close to the centerline and will experience 5 1/2 minutes of darkness.



Eclipses are rare and to have the path of totality cross over millions of people is even more rare. The next time we can see a total eclipse in the US will be in 2017. Sigh... maybe Leon will be there in July to take some pictures for me.