On January 4th of 1992, San Diego was blessed with a Sunset Annular eclipse.
An annular eclipse occurs when the center of the Moon crosses the center
of the Sun as seen from the Earth, and the Moon's apparent size is slightly
smaller than the Sun. This results in a ``Ring of Fire,'' in which a small
ring of the sun shines around the Moon. An Annular Eclipse happens in the
same place about once every 300 years. It's especially beautiful when it
occurs at sunset, which happens in the same place once every 20,000 years!
Five friends and I road-tripped the 420 miles from Tucson, Arizona the
morning of the 4th, while it was raining in Tucson. It was cloudy almost
all the way to San Diego, but luckily started to clear when we were about
60 miles away. My parents had arraigned for us to be able to see it from
the roof of the Benedictine Convent which is situated on a hill and gave
us a clear view of the sunset over the ocean. These two photos were taken
by Dave Siegel of the ring of the Sun setting over the ocean.
