APOD 3.2 Eclipses in the Shade

On January 15th, the longest annular solar eclipse that will occur for the next 1,00o years appeared over Africa and Asia. This particular image was taken in Ellaidhoo, Maldives, which is an atoll island in the Indian Ocean. Annular eclipses occur when the sun and moon are exactly in line but the apparent size of the moon is smaller than that of the Sun. This particular eclipse lasted 10 minutes and 55 seconds. The image displays little images of the eclipse scattered across the sand. The crossed leaves of palm trees created gaps that acted like pinhole cameras. Pinhole cameras consist of a hole that creates an image of the outside space on the opposite side of the box. Because of this effect, you can see lots of tiny images of the eclipse all over the background of the sand.