An Eclipse,From Below and Above

The last total solar eclipse of the millennium held special treasures for astronomers like Jay Pasachoff of Williams Collage .He observed tgr August 11,1999, eclipse from "ground zero" : Rimnicu, Vilcea, Romania, Where the moon obscired the sun for two minutes and 23 seconds.His photographs (top) show the gradual approach of darkness, culminating in a view of the red solar prominences and white streamers of the sun's corona, intensified because the sun is near the peak of its 11-year cycle of activity.
Fromspace, cosmonauts in Mir captured this image of the clouds over western Europe, darkened by the moon's shadow (right). The next total solar eclipse will cross over Africa on June 21, 2001.

Bibliografia:

National Geographic

Vol. 197