I am grateful that the French/German channel ARTE provides footage of the concert of Brian and Roger Eno at the Acropolis in Athens of August 4. The circumstances, in times of Covid, the most terrifying heat wave in Athens since 1987, and even more terrifying bush fires which had reached the outskirts of the Greek capital, must have been extraordinary. Peter Chilvers who was part of the, well, familiy band, wrote the next day, on the Manafonistas blog,
When discussing the current Corona virus pandemic with a friend, he mentioned some apocalyptic ideas about God’s wrath. I replied that it is actually Mother Nature who strikes back. Evolution is the concept at work these days.
Homo sapiens (I falter when writing the accepted species name, but am rather tempted to put stupidus instead) has largely excluded themselves from evolution in recent centuries, so a correction was overdue. Just before the planet was destroyed by mass extinction of species, mass pollution with plastic, mass murder with endless wars and, not at least, catastrophic global heating.
Happy New Year! to all who still follow my blog. We returned safely from buzzing Doha last week where the 1999 Annular Solar Eclipse was visible but again obscured by lots of clouds. The GIF of the above satellite’s view can be seen here.
The best picture I was able to take was this one, just before the rising sun reached the overcast sky. We were in Al Wakrah, some 20 km south of Doha. There were a dozen or so fellow eclipse watchers on the beach so early in the morning.
As an annular eclipse is considered dangerous as at no time you should look into the sun, we used, of course, proper eye protection.
The next annular will be on 21 June 2020. And believe it or not, it will be visible again in the Middle East, best in Oman near Muscat.
31 December 2019 @ 8:40 am.
Last modified December 31, 2019.
A rare annular solar eclipse will happen on December 26 this year. Visibility will be from Eastern provinces of Saudi Arabia early in the morning, then the totality will rush to Qatar, Abu Dhabi and Oman and then into the Arabian Sea and India.
I expect a spectacular show in Doha where the sun shall rise already partially eclipsed and the totality may be seen about half an hour after sunrise.
Some readers may remember that I have had a quite traumatic experience when a total solar eclipse was visible, or rather not, in Germany in August 1999. So, let’s hope there are clear skies in the Middle East. Eye protection was ordered!
19 October 2019 @ 11:20 am
Last modified October 19, 2019
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