APOD
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
Eclipse Shirt 2009
Explanation: Of course , everyone is concerned about what to wear to a solar eclipse . This is a great example though, especially for the first eclipse of the International Year of Astronomy 2009 . In the picture, recorded during the January 26 solar eclipse from the grounds of the South African Astronomical Observatory at Cape Town, repeated images of the eclipse adorn a well-chosen shirt. The effect is familiar to eclipse enthusiasts as small gaps, commonly between leaves on trees , act as pinhole cameras to generate multiple recognizable images of the eclipse. From the Cape Town perspective, the solar eclipse was a partial one, with a maximum of about 65% of the Sun covered. But along a track extending across the Indian Ocean and western Indonesia the eclipse became annular, the solar disk briefly appearing as a fiery ring around the silhouetted Moon.
| Date | January 29, 2009 |
|---|---|
| Credit | Credit & Copyright: Simon Fishley ( SAAO ) |
| Authors & editors: | Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP) |
| A service of: |
ASD at NASA / GSFC, NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U. |



