Total Solar Eclipse, Chisamba, Zambia, 2001

Composite astrophotograph made with a Vixen 102-ed refracting telescope

Riverside Astronomical Society, Riverside, California, United States

A total solar eclipse occurs when the moon's disk covers the disk of the sun. The total solar eclipse of June 21, 2001, was the first of the twenty-first century. Visible from the Southern Hemisphere, the path of totality crossed the South Atlantic Ocean, southern Africa, and Madagascar. The Sun's outer atmosphere, the corona, can only be seen from Earth during a total solar eclipse. Because of the tremendous range in brightness between the inner and outer corona, it is impossible to capture all of its detail in a single photograph. Eleven separate exposures ranging from 1/1000th to one second were scanned and then digitally combined to create a single image which shows the range of detail normally visible when viewing the corona directly. Around the edge of the moonÕs dark shadow, pink prominences can be seen as they erupt from the sunÕs surface.