A video of century’s longest total solar eclipse

Millions of enthusiasts across parts of India, China, and Japan yesterday witnessed the grand celestial spectacle.

If I may quote from the maker of the following YouTube video, the solar eclipse lasted as long as 6 minutes and 39 seconds in some places.

There is also the information that the video is from NHK–the Japanese National Broadcasting Corp., and taken aboard a cruise ship positioned off Iwo Jima in the South Pacific, about 1000 km south of Tokyo.

The video is a real education, an eye-opener. Apart from the eclipse itself which is usually mostly photographed, the video scans the horizon and beautifully shows how dark it becomes when the sun is fully covered by the moon. In fact it shows the Mercury and the Venus sparkling in the dark sky.