Not many countries in the world were lucky to witness the last full solar eclipse for the millenium on August 11, 1999. Bulgaria though was one of the few where the natural phenomenon could be seen. My family (except my sister who unfortunately couldn't take a day off from work) and a few friends traveled through most of the country and found a beautiful scenic place at the Danube river which was on the central line of the full solar eclipse. Needless to say, the experience was unforgettable so I decided to share some of the photographs that we took with the rest of the world. Hope you'll enjoy them.
Probably I should start with a picture of our group of people eager to see the eclipse in its full glory not via television but with our own eyes. One of our members (the guy with the beard in the back) is an astronomer so we had a telescope for solar observation as well. |
We arrived at the place for observation about 2 hours before the full eclipse so we had some time to get acquainted with the surroundings. Here I am on a boat in the Danube river. The shore that you see across is Romanian. |
Looking through the telescope revealed details that I had never even dreamed of seeing. Here I am just learning how to use it under the instruction of our astronomer. |
The sun during the partial eclipse... isn't it magnificent? The blue tint is due to the filter we had to use for taking the picture. |
Seconds before the full eclipse we were still using the safety glasses which allowed us to look directly at the sun. |
The sun right before the full eclipse. |
The last moments in which we could use the safety glasses to observe the sun. Just a second later we had to remove them in order to see the beauty of the full solar eclipse. |
The sun looked gorgeous the moment before the full eclipse. Outside it was almost completely dark. |
The two minutes of full eclipse were dark as night. In order to observe the natural phenomenon all safety glasses had to be removed. We literary could not take our eyes off the sun until the very end of the two minutes of full solar eclipse. |
This is me smiling that I got to witness the natural phenomenon. The little dot in the back is the sun during the full eclipse. |
So these are some of the photos that we took on August 11, 1999 during the last full solar eclipse for the millenium. Undoubtedly being there can't be substituted by anything but I still hope that these few pictures were interesting to the ones who weren't lucky to be in a place where they could observe the eclipse.