National Planetarium, Malaysia

The people in Langkawi and us from ANGKASA and FalakOnline were blessed here with extremely good weather throughout the entire eclipse that happened here, 15 January 2010 starting from 2:50PM till 5:50PM. The first wave of people, roughly around 1,000 of them came right after the Friday prayers from nearby mosques, just in time to watch the first touch.

Most men were still in their Baju Melayu. There were 2 telescopes used for public visual observation, 1 continuous video feed for those who like to watch it LIVE on site in a display monitor, 1 specialized Coronado telescope and 1 camera with for capturing close-up shots that you see here. Most people instantly scattered themselves all over the area, some wanted to look at it close up through the telescope, some just wanted to sit, relax and watch the eclipse taking place from the display monitor while some wanted to get involve and came to watch what some of the staves were doing at the same time.

The location of the program crowded with people...
 

The second wave of people, less in number of about 800 came right before the maximum eclipse. MRSM Langkawi group (students and teachers) came to cheer us up when they arrive in their school bus and uniform. They stayed with the crew until the very end of the eclipse.

MRSM students...... everywhere...

Visitor had fun not only watching the eclipse but also improvising to create a pin hole projection from hole in between finger and their fist. The crew cleverly used their cowboy hats that had small holes in them to create very beautiful shadows were the sun’s image was rather clear and visible.

The number of people dropped rather drastically not long after the maximum point because the buildup of the eclipse was somewhat over. However, the crew soldier on, still recording the partial eclipse on video and still pictures.

The crews that made the program a success...
 

All in all, most of the visitors were enlightened when some of them came up to us and requested for future programs for people in Langkawi and also schools here.

The unique thing about this eclipse is that there is a sunspot, sunspot 1040 to be exact, that was eclipsed by the moon during the eclipse. Here is a picture of the sunspot after it has been covered by the moon when the moon was in the process of exiting the Sun.

For those interested, we recorded the entire process and you can have a look at the entire progress here: