Diamonds in Uganda

A story about total solar eclipse on November 3rd, 2013. When the eclipse started (on the left side of the image), there were two parts of a diamond ring, which was unusual (for me first time). It is caused by the angle diameter of the Moon in this case of a hybrid eclipse. The magnitude of coverage from Pakwero, Uganda, was just 1,00259, which means the Sun photosphere could easily shine above two different locations of a lunar limb at the same time. The next hybrid solar eclipse will occur in April 2023 over western Australia and Indonesia. Canon 6D, Rubinar 1000/10, ISO 250, 5×1/500 s, Vixen GPD-2 mount.

We were very lucky in Pokwero, Uganda. Thanks to the amazing kindness of our guide Crammy Wanyama from Uganda Safaris nad Tours we could find a place to observe the eclipse without any interruption, so the only bad thing, that could happen, was covering the totality by clouds. Fortunately – even if we really had one big cloud – the sky in the location of the Sun cleared up just 5 minutes before short totality. As a bonus, we could see a very significant circular lunar shadow projected into the cirrus clouds. As you can see in the second image (Captured on Canon 550D, Sigma 10mm, ISO 400, 1/125s, f2.8). The width of the path of totality in our place was just 17 kilometers. So only less than 9 kilometers from us was still sunshine with no total eclipse of the Sun.

Website info: https://www.petrhoralek.com/?p=137

Prof. Druckmüller’s processing of the data: http://www.zam.fme.vutbr.cz/~druck/Eclipse/Ecl2013u/0-info.htm