wpo - total eclipse of sun from France - 1999 Aug 11

Dieppe - France : The eclipse of the sun on Wednesday 1999 August 11 was witnessed by millions as the shadow of the moon raced across Europe and Asia.  The track of totality, where day turned to night for a few minutes, was only about 20 miles wide.    My family, with three cars, did a daytrip from Newhaven - Sussex to Dieppe - France to stand in the moon's shadow.

We had better luck from northern France than the overcast UK mainland of Devon and Cornwall and the shortest route to totality from London......just an hour's drive down to the Channel port of Newhaven and a smooth high speed two hour super-cat crossing via schedule ferry to Dieppe.  We were in Dieppe by 9.30AM BST with under two hours to totality.   Dieppe was busy but traffic easy flowing and our main party viewed from the beach promenade with thousands of relaxed french day-trippers.   Cloud persisted over Dieppe town with a clearish horizon out to sea and inland.   30 minutes before totality  the Gavin party split - one car load travelling 5 miles south towards the airport and broken cloud.

From the beach only the partial phases were visible.  A sudden plunge into darkness at the onset of totality had the viewers yelping with delight.   The horizon cloud was tinged the most amazing colours as the shadow passed over and on to the east.  A distant cliff-top twinkled with a hundred camera flashes sensing the darkness.

From a lay-by near the airport totality was amazing...... the black moon in a grey sky and the pearly corona reaching outwards through a cloud break.  Venus below the sun was seen [centre right frame of sequence below] but no other stars.   A shaky video was captured........all too much for any science.   Again [as in India in '95] I forgot to use a grating to view the sun's chromospheric emission lines...until after totality.   None were seen in the partial phase.

It was apparently cloudy back home at Worcester Park although generally clear for the partial eclipse for the eastern half of the UK including London, Brighton, Newhaven [our exit port], Liverpool etc.   Ironically our ferry, shuttling to and fro from Newhaven, had a perfect view of totality a mile or so beyond Dieppe harbour - the crew were full-of-it on the return trip home!

text & images copyright Maurice Gavin - WPO - Surrey - UK 1999       return to my homepage