Solar eclipse excitement sweeps Asia

CNN) -- Skywatchers are gathering from parking lots in western India to music festivals on remote Japanese islands to witness what NASA describes as an "exceptionally long" total solar eclipse that will cross half the planet on Wednesday.

The eclipse is expected to reach its peak over India at around 12:40 a.m. GMT Wednesday (8:40 p.m. ET Tuesday).

Though the duration of greatest eclipse will occur over the Pacific Ocean at six minutes, 39 seconds, people in some areas of China and Japan will experience up to more than six minutes of darkness, according to predictions by Fred Espenak of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and J. Anderson of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada.

The 15,150-kilometer (9,415-mile) journey of the moon's shadow across the Earth will last nearly three-and-a-half hours and be "one of the longest eclipses, if not the longest eclipse, in this century," Binzel said.

I sure would LOVE to see this!!

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/07/21/asia.solar.eclipse/index.html

This is very cool. The longest total eclipse this century.

Thanks for the link.

That was absolutely beautiful, the bits and pieces I saw on tv.