Explanation:
On June 1, the shadow
of the New Moon
was cast across a
land of the midnight Sun in this year's
second
partial solar eclipse.
This picture of the
geocentric
celestial event above the Arctic
Circle was taken near midnight from northern Finland's
Kaunispää Hill in Lapland.
Of course the region's
reindeer
were able to watch as both
Moon and Sun
hugged the northern horizon just above a cloud bank.
Also visible from parts of Alaska and Canada, the eclipse began at
sunrise in Siberia
and northern China at 19:25 UT,
ending about 3.5 hours later north of Newfoundland
in the Atlantic Ocean.
Remarkably, just one lunation later,
on
July 1 the New Moon's shadow
will again reach out and touch
the Earth in a partial solar eclipse, limited in visibility
to a relatively small area in the Antarctic Ocean.
July's eclipse will be followed by the fourth and final
partial solar eclipse of
2011
on November 25.
That eclipse will be seen from
a southern land of the midnight Sun.
