Last updated: 28 July 2001

The eclipse was an amazing site to behold. Breathtaking. These pictures are mere mementos of the event and can't come close to relaying the experience of actually being there.

 
The eclipse, as seen at 13:09 (local time) at the Solipse festival, just outside of Chisamba, Zambia, about 60 km NNE of Lusaka. The image is shown taken at two different exposure levels.


Zooming back a bit, the planet Jupiter can be seen faintly below and to the right of the eclipsed Sun. Not shown in this picture, the star of the greatest apparent brightness besides the Sun, Sirius, could also been seen.


The progression of the eclipse, at the somewhat irregular intervals when I felt like taking each picture.

Some images from the Solipse Festival









After 26 hours in transit, the dull and cramped conditions of which are punctuated only by the brief panic of running at top speed through Heathrow to catch a connecting flight, I don't do much with my first day in Lusaka other than get showered, chat in the hotel bar with some fellow eclipse chasers, take this picture (looking east over Lusaka from my hotel window), and get some rest.


Next day, it's Sunday in Lusaka, and very quiet with nearly everything closed down. Not much to do today but take a walk through town and try to figure out how to get to Victoria Falls when every tourist agency says all the tours are solidly booked.

This monument, by the way, reads "Third Conference of Non-Aligned Countries September 1970".


I know it's Sunday and the Supreme Court is closed, but somehow this place looks like it doesn't usually gets too busy anyway.


My first run in with the police -- however, the police inspector and his friends only wanted me to take their picture. (Mr. Inspector: I think room service threw out the scrap of paper with your name and address on it, so I hope you come to my web site, see this, and e-mail me!)


This is the Lusaka National Museum, which surprised me by being open on a Sunday. The paintings below are from an exhibit that was just being set up when I came in, so I can't credit the artists yet, as the painting weren't labeled. I've got the curator's e-mail however, so I can get the info later.






Cairo Road, the business center of Lusaka. Nearly everything is closed, but I do manage to purchase a bus ticket to Livingstone (near Victoria Falls) for 38,000 Kwacha -- that's about $11 US. With no way to assure a return ride in advance, however, I later opt for a different plan.


Seems I run into a lot of people who like having their picture taken... including my taxi driver. I didn't notice until after we stopped for gas that he was starting the car by pressing two bare copper wires together.


A little warm-up photography for the eclipse: This is about three and a half days before the eclipse, with Venus and the Moon rising over Lusaka. Faintly, 4.3-magnitude Mu Ceti can be seen above and to the right of the Moon.


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\n"; } $dbh->disconnect(); #!/usr/bin/perl require 'util.lib'; mimeText(); $id = getFormData('id'); $action = getFormData('action'); if ($action ne 'logdump' && $action ne 'showlinks') { if (getCookie('nolog') eq 'true') { print "."; exit; } if (!defined($id)) { $id = 'unknown'; } $path = ">>logs/$id.log"; open(LOGFILE, $path) || errorExit(' '); flock(LOGFILE, 2); $timeStamp = gmtime; print LOGFILE "$timeStamp\t"; print LOGFILE "$ENV{'REMOTE_ADDR'}\t"; print LOGFILE "$ENV{'REMOTE_HOST'}\t"; print LOGFILE "$ENV{'HTTP_REFERER'}\t"; print LOGFILE "$ENV{'HTTP_USER_AGENT'}\t"; print LOGFILE "$ENV{'HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE'}\t"; print LOGFILE "$ENV{'HTTP_COOKIE'}\t"; print LOGFILE "\n"; flock(LOGFILE, 8); close(LOGFILE); } elsif ($action eq 'logdump') { print "\n"; print "\n"; print "Log\n"; print ''; print "\n"; print "\n"; if (defined($id)) { $file = "$id.log"; $path = "logs/$file"; if (open(LOGFILE, "logs/$file")) { showLog(); close(LOGFILE); } else { print "(error opening $file)\n"; } } else { opendir(LOGDIR, "logs") || errorExit(); @files = readdir(LOGDIR); closedir(LOGDIR); foreach $file (@files) { if ($file ne '.' && $file ne '..') { $path = "logs/$file"; if (open(LOGFILE, $path)) { showLog(); close(LOGFILE); } else { print "(error opening $file)\n"; } } } } print "\n"; print "\n"; } elsif ($action eq 'showlinks') { opendir(LOGDIR, "logs") || errorExit(); @files = readdir(LOGDIR); closedir(LOGDIR); @files = sort(@files); foreach $file (@files) { if ($file ne '.' && $file ne '..') { $file =~ s/\..*$//; print "View log for $file
\n"; } } } sub showLog { my @lines = ; @lines = reverse @lines; my $line; $file =~ s/\..*$//; print "$file
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