The effect of the site change was to reduce this already
short eclipse down to 97 seconds of totality and place the sun
even closer to the horizon than previously planned. However, the upside of
moving closer to the edge of the moon's shadow was the possibility of
an enhanced display of Bailey's Beads which happen as the last bits of
the bright surface of the sun can be seen between mountain peaks on
the edge of the moon. To make the best of the situation,
I decided to concentrate my shots on rapid sequences
of short exposures at the 2nd and
3rd contacts instead of trying to get long exposures of the
outer corona.
Dawn at our hotel in Dunhuang did not do much to alleviate fears of
being clouded out. The overnight thunderstorm was gone and the
ground had dried out, but cloud cover was still fairly heavy. However,
one benefit of the 6 hour bus ride to the actual observing site near
the town of Jinta was that we were fortunately moved into an area
relatively free of clouds (unlike some other unfortunate eclipse
observing groups).
The sun itself surprisingly showed nothing at all on its surface
even in a telescopic view so the partial phases were perhaps a bit
less interesting than usual. But in the end, wind and dust were
really the only negatives
that plagued us for the actual eclipse, and we were treated to
a nice view of totality with a good show of Bailey's Beads and
eclipse colors tinted by the approaching sunset. An additional
bonus was that the low elevation of the sun made the cone of the moon's
shadow obvious in the sky as it swept past us.
A view to the south from the eclipse site shows the foothills
of the Tibetan plateau in the distance.
