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Home > Eclipses > Solar Eclipses > Partial Solar Eclipse of 2015 September 13

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Partial Solar Eclipse of 2015 September 13
in South Africa, Namibia, Botswana or Antarctica

This partial solar eclipse will be mainly visible from Antarctica in order to get an interesting magnitude. A return to the russian Novolazarevskaya research station and its blue-ice runway would likely offer great view and possibly good weather conditions, the same being true for the french-italian Concordia research station.
In order to be able to make the whole return trip during the weekend, I will travel to South Africa for a stay of less than a day at Cape L’Agulhas before flying back to Europe.

You can use this solar eclipse calculator to compute the local circumstances of the eclipse. A time exposure calculator is there to help you choose your camera settings.

Click on thumbnails for a larger version

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Eclipse circumstances	Map with semi-duration curves	Cloud cover in September (courtesy of Jay Anderson)	Eclipse animation
2015 September 13 partial solar eclipse from L’Agulhas, South Africa
The sky was partly cloudy on eclipse morning at sunrise. Because of the strong winds, about 50 km/h (30 mph), a low layer of clouds was moving fast from the horizon towards my location. After the eclipse the sky started to clear for a beautiful sunny day.
Shortly after sunrise in L’Agulhas	Eclipse 10 minutes after sunrise	3 minutes before the maximum	Eclipse maximum from L’Agulhas
4 minutes after the maximum	13 minutes after the maximum from L’Agulhas	16 minutes after the maximum	10 minutes before the end of eclipse from L’Agulhas
The return trip took place within 48 hours during the weekend with a stay of less than 24 hours in South Africa near Cape Town. The outbound leg was mostly uneventful, neverthless it’s nice to see the three A380s parked close together at Johannesburg. Observing the eclipse was succesfully performed with unpredictable and windy weather. The return was more difficult with a late arrival at Cape Town airport. Filling up the tank and dropping the rental car took some time, so when I arrived at the check-in counters they were already closed. However traveling in Business with a Platinum status does provide a few benefits like to be able to reopen the flight, pass the security and passport checks more quickly, including with metal cutlery inside one of the carry-on bags, getting an empty bus to be taken to the plane while the gateway had been already pulled back, etc. In short to successfully board the flight…
Air France and British Airways A380s in Johannesburg (JNB)	Air France and Lufthansa A380s in Johannesburg (JNB)	Air France, Lufthansa and British Airways A380s in Johannesburg (JNB)	SA333 A340-600 take-off from Johannesburg (JNB)
SA333 A340-600 landing in Cape Town (JNB)	Rental car in Cape Town (CPT)	Shortly after sunrise in L’Agulhas	Between sunrise and maximum in L’Agulhas
Cape L’Agulhas
Cape Agulhas	Empty aircraft bus leaving the Cape Town airport terminal	Empty bus arriving at the aircraft in the Cape Town airport	Cape Town (CPT) take-off on the A340-300 SA336 flight
Strand beach from the aircraft	False Bay from the aircraft	Business Cabin on South African Airways	Three aligned A380s ready for their return flights