11 July 2010 Total Solar Eclipse from Hao atoll, French Polynesia

[HollyHeliVid]

I've puzzled over this one too! I do not believe in a divine creator/designer, so it worries me how these eclipses happen to coincide with modern man's brief residence on the planet. Either we are (literally) unbelievably lucky, or total solar eclipses have something to do with us being here. I have yet to see how the latter could be the case. I don't think it matters whether we are the only intelligent life in the universe or not, the incredulity, regarding our case, is the same.

[Kenmorfdublin]

By an almost miraculous coincidence the Sun's distance from the Earth is about 400 times the Moon's distance, and the Sun's diameter is about 400 times the Moon's diameter.

Because these ratios are approximately the same, the Sun and the Moon as seen from Earth appear to be approximately the same size: about 0.5 degree of arc in angular measure.

The chances of this phenomenon occurring on other planets in the universe - with intelligent life or not - are as close to nil as you could imagine.

[HollyHeliVid]

Somehow Pete's original comment got removed, it was:

PeteTheBritt has made a comment on 11 July 2010 Total Solar Eclipse from Hao atoll, French Polynesia:

Well done, this was a fantastic spectacle & like yourself i was fortunate enough to get over to the island from the UK. I was shooting only stills & this is great to see again. Thanks for sharing, i'll be posting some timelapse from stills later this weekend once i've finished editing :)

[HollyHeliVid]

@PeteTheBritt

Thanks for the nice comment, Pete, I hope it was a relaxing chase compared to your usual storms! I like your unusual polar star trails done with time-lapse, an unconventional approach. May I subscribe so I don't miss the eclipse sequence?

[PeteTheBritt]

@HollyHeliVid Yes of course you can, i'm uploading at the moment so should be able to view it in HD in a couple of hours with any luck lol. It became a relaxing chase once i got onto the island, this was 3 years in the planning for this trip & a sequence of small miracles to come together & it all did :) Hope to post the eclipse from 2008 in the Gobi desert at some stage so there'll be something else to fill up a few minutes of your day looking at :) Oz next?