Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision.

The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining. (Joel 3:14,15)

Solar eclipse awes spectators across the globe

From Times Online
August 1, 2008

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article4443396.ece

From the wastes of Siberia to the deserts of western China, thousands of people turned out to watch the solar eclipse as it swept across the earth.

The eclipse began in arctic Canada, when the moon first came between the earth and the sun. The shadow then passed across Greenland to Russia, where soon after 1000 GMT darkness descended on the Siberian city of Novosibirsk. Birds fell silent and the temperature dropped suddenly. An eerie wind blew through the assembled throng.

It was the largest city under the eclipse path and more than 10,000 tourists descended on the city, local media reported,

In St Petersburg the sun's outer corona appeared, to gasps of amazement from onlookers. "You just feel part of nature," said one. "This is so rare".

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The Kremlin's top medical adviser, Gennady Onishchenko, told Russian TV: "It is quite eerie for any thinking person to watch how everything turns into darkness in broad daylight."

Scores of tourists from around the world have travelled to remote settlements in Russia and China the event, many of them veteran eclipse-chasers. “I’ve come all the way from California for this. It’s going to be my 11th eclipse, I try to see them all,” said Dave Balch, a cancer care adviser.

In Khotan, in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region in western China, observers turned out to watch the partial eclipse, while others stayed indoors to watch a broadcast of totality from a few hundred miles down the road, transmitted live on Chinese TV.

The sky became noticeably more overcast and, viewed with special glasses, the outline of the moon was visible against the disk of the sun.

Some expressed vague fears that the eclipse might be a harbinger of misfortune, but others were more phlegmatic. "In the old days they said that a dog was eating the sun," said one. "We know that's all nonsense".

In Britain, low cloud blotted out the eclipse across much of the country, but in Shetland, where 36 per cent of the sun was covered - more than anywhere else in Britain - the sky remained miraculously clear.

Local astronomers were delighted, but many remained oblivious to the optical delight that was unfolding above them. There were no crowds out watching - just the odd telescope on cliff tops or in people’s gardens.

“I didn’t even realise there was an eclipse,” said the receptionist at a local hotel. “It just goes to show what happens if you live up here - you don’t find out about anything until it’s too late.”