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Total Solar Eclipse 21 June 2001

All photographs by Lee & Chris, taken from the garden nextdoor to where were staying in Lusaka.

This was the trip of a lifetime for us. When the 1999 solar eclipse in Cornwall was rained off we vowed we'd see the next one wherever in the world it was, so it seemed a fabulous omen that the very next one passed right through Lee's home town of Lusaka, Zambia. (We intended to top the experience by getting married the day after, but the city council chose that week to go on strike, so it was not until the 27th that we tied the knot). So now you know why Chris was in the air above Harare a week or so earlier.

Luckily those glory-ous clouds had rolled away by the 21st and we had perfect seeing conditions for our first eclipse.

As the sky darkened, crescent-shaped sunbeams shone through the foliage and just before totality we were engulfed by waves of shadow bands too faint and fast-moving to photograph. Dogs started howling all over town and the birds made a mad dash for their nests.

Despite being overawed by the experience, we did manage to take a few photographs. These pictures are mostly scanned from prints and (other than the last) unprocessed apart from cropping the edges and removing the dirty marks from our first excited handling of the prints.

Tragically we have no negatives; Jes***s lost the lot.

Click on an image for a full-size picture and description

Getting ready	Shadows 1	Shadows 2	Shadows 3
The eclipse begins	The corona	Diamond ring (just)	Stacked corona