Well Fred Watson, welcome to North Queensland and welcome to the 2012 eclipse. What can
we expect to see? A whole lot of stuff really. An eclipse of course is when this extraordinary
coincidence of the moon being one four hundredth of the diameter of the sun but four hundred times
nearer when it passes in front of the sun you get this amazing event of the sun's light being
blotted out. The sun literally turns to black. So that's going to happen here in North Queensland.
And you say extraordinary event, how extraordinary? It's extraordinary in any one place on the earth
surface because whilst they're usually on average two eclipses a year somewhere on the earth surface
in any given point they're quite rare. For example in the United Kingdom there were only two in the
20th century one in 1927 and one in 1999. I remember them both you know. This is a bit of a leading
question but in the film Apocalypse they have a solar eclipse and the next night they have a full
moon. That can't happen can it? Well no not not an eclipse of the sun because of course an eclipse
of the sun when the moon passes in front of the sun this can only happen at new moon and full moon
is 14 days later. So a total eclipse of the moon when the moon passes through the shadow of the
earth that happens at full moon but not at new moon. Is there a regularity to eclipses? When you
think about the way the moon's orbit works and the earth's orbit around the sun after 18 years
it tends to repeat. It doesn't repeat exactly it's still an inexact science in the sense that
you know you don't get two eclipses 18 years apart in the same spot on the earth but there is a
kind of general mechanism to it that takes an 18 year cycle. Being a paleontologist to me it's just
a shadow let's not get excited but is there some real science that can still be done in this day
and age around eclipses? Yeah there is indeed because even though there are now you know there's
flotillas of spacecraft which are actually looking at the sun from space so they can see
in great detail things like the sun's corona which is its outer atmosphere and its
chromosphere which is its inner atmosphere. Nevertheless when you get this special event of
the moon and the sun and the earth lining up there is potentially new science to be done
because of course it also corresponds with things like the tides the moon and the sun
in a straight line it's actually a condition called scissorgy it's one of the best words for
scrabble and scissorgy is when these objects are all lining up in the straight line so the tidal
effect is greater and there are suggestions that slightly old things happen when you get an eclipse
because the alignment then is is exact. Now it's not I think it strays almost into the realm of
pseudoscience but there have been reports of things like Foucault Pendulums behaving in an
unusual way when there is a total eclipse of the sun so there is still new science to be done
and are you going to be doing any science? The science I'll be doing is kind of the sociology
of what eclipses do to people which is partly because I'm not a sociology stamina astronomer
but I'm really fascinated by the effect that eclipses have on people just the way that you know
in a sense they unlock a kind of fairly primeval instinctive people and it's usually terror because
the sun disappearing is such a portent of doom in our psyche perhaps in our culture that I think
it's a really interesting thing to observe so you know the bottom line is I'm not doing any real
science but I have a lot a lot to learn about eclipses and about the way they affect me. It's
been an incredible year for astronomy we've seen the transitive venus which was a little dot going
past the sun and now we've got a solar eclipse which is just a big shadow going across the sun.
Yeah that's right but one of the fascinating things that you will be aware of as a paleontologist
is that eclipses like this are a relatively recent thing a relatively recent phenomenon because
the moon is moving away from the earth at a rate of 3.82 centimetres per year which means that 300
million years ago the moon would have appeared significantly larger in the sky and would have
actually blotted out much more of the sun's outer corona than it does now. Conversely in about three
four hundred million years time the moon will not be big enough to blot out the disc of the sun
because it's drifting away so it's a remarkable thing that the the moon is exactly the right
angular diameter to cover the sun exactly just when there are intelligent beings on earth to look at
it and a lot of people have given a lot of great thought to that. Do you have any special viewing
instructions for looking at the eclipse? That's right yeah don't look at the sun don't look at
the disc of the sun because you will damage your eyes especially if you use binoculars or a telescope
and most of the eclipse glasses and and darkened screens that you can get especially for the purpose
are pretty safe you can use those without worrying that you're going to damage your eyesight but
what you must not do is put them on and then hold binoculars up to the sun because the binoculars
are magnifying the heat of the light and heat and light of the sun they'll burn a hole in the
eclipse glasses and then very quickly burn a hole in the retina of your eye so only use the eclipse
glasses to look at the sun directly without any optical aid. Once the eclipse is in its total
phase when the moon is covering the sun's disc then it is safe to look without but you've got to
be really careful that you get your eclipse glasses back on again before the sun comes back into view.
Now suppose when I sleep in on the day and I miss it I can catch the next eclipse when is that?
Well it depends where you're happy to go actually you can see another one here next year
but it's an annular eclipse one that leaves a ring of sunlight around the disc of the moon.
There are other eclipses in the 2020s in Australia in fact if I remember right in the late 2020s
there is one not very far from where I live in Sydney so that's the one to go for.
And how's the weather looking for the day? Yeah we need good weather that's the critical thing
that's the one thing you can't plan for plan for everything else but the weather
is one of those things that affects people no matter what they're doing whether it's eclipses or not.
Well with the magic of video here comes the eclipse for 2012. Fred Watson thank you very much.
Great to talk to you.
