The Moon’s shadow will dip into Earth on Thursday April 20.
This picture, from one of the pages about the eclipse in Astronomical Calendar 2023, shows the needle-like umbra or total shadow, reaching as far as Earth’s surface only in the middle part of its track.
Enthusiasts who have traveled to the remote westernmost corner of Australia will see a tight total eclipse. The Moon will fit so closely over the Sun that the edge effects – such as beads between the mountains around the Moon’s outline – may ripple throughout the short duration of totality.
In the early and late parts, out in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, the tip of that needle will be out in space. So people on ships there will see the Moon as a circle of blue sky surrounded by a dazzling ring of sunlight – an annular or “ring” eclipse.
Oh, what is Strine? It’s the Austral’n dialect of English, according to the 1965 book Let Stalk Strine by “Afferbeck Lauder” (“alphabetical order”). Ozzies are good at laughing at themselves, as in their unofficial national anthem, “Waltzing Matilda.”
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I have heard them refer to a Melbourne accent as strine but I couldn’t tell the difference between a person from Perth, Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne,etc as the Australian accent seems to be continental and even pretty much extending to New Zealand too.I suppose that if you lived there you’d develop an ear for regional accent variations.
And his ghost may be heard if you pass by that billabong, “Who’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?”
I look forward to 22 July 2028 when a total solar eclipse will be visible from Sydney. Indeed, the centre of the path of totality will be only a few kms from my house.
None of the eclipse was visible from Sydney. All completely clouded out.
Exmouth eclipse exhilaration, excitement and ecstasy. Perfect clear skies, 2 huge prominences at 9 oclock and a flower petal corona. Too short at 62 seconds on the centreline.
Gidday mate, it’s a bonza sunny day here 50 km south of Exmouth. Our party of 3 will drive up to the centre line for our 62 seconds worth. Nervous now as plenty of broken altocumulus about. Stone the crows, we’ll be crooked as a two bob watch if totality is obscured. But let’s be positive and say that she’ll be right mate.
She’ll be right, mate, she’ll be right,
Don’t worry, mate, she’ll be right,
If a cloud gets in the way
Just blow that cloud away,
So don’t worry, mate, she’ll be right!
(With apologies to Peter Cape.)
Another version for diversity … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmzR3mPtACg
Thank you Guy. Whenever I hear “Waltzing Matilda” I think of the heartbreaking antiwar song, “And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda.”
I hadn’t known of that devastating song. And “Waltzing Matilda” isn’t really funny, though those two words and their jingle sound light-hearted. The ending is that the “jolly” swagman drowns himself. Much is wry. The poem is owed to Banjo Paterson, who sounds like a swagman blithely roaming into the outback with a banjo on his arm, but was actually a city lawyer who nicknamed himself after his father’s horse and who made a trip to a sheep station to visit his fiancée and instead flirted with someone else, who was a pianist and composed the tune.
It’ll be slim pickings here in Sydney with a magnitude 0.19 partial eclipse obscuring just 10% of the sun’s disc. Rain forecast too.