11-08-99

Hello from Paris!

Attached are two images of today's solar eclipse, taken by yours truly from Riems, north of Paris, one of the French cities in the path of the total blackout.

Both are taken during the moments before totality - one with and one without a solar filter.

Don't say we don't deliver with the Astronomy Interest Group! :-)

It was an absolutely amazing experience, especially as it was overcast up until the actual start of the eclipse(!)

There were thousands of people there, from all over the world. We were all very, very lucky that the cloud cover broke for us to witness the eclipse, afterwhich it promptly clouded over again.

I took a really good series of digital photographs (thanks to Dr Peter Taylor's digital camera). I think you are really going to enjoy the slide presentation when I return.

Well, got to run again (that's all I've been doing for 3 weeks now!)

Ciao for now

Mario Di Maggio