Solar eclipse 2009 trips: Cruising the Yangtze River as eclipse day nears

Posted by David Eicher
on Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Tuesday morning we continued our adventure in China, hoping for a good eclipse day tomorrow. On Sunday we traveled down to Chongquing, a huge city of 8 million in the inner part and 32 million in the surrounding area. It is one of the centers of manufacturing. You know all that stuff you buy from China? A lot of it comes from there.

See all the images from Dave's tour in our solar eclipse 2009 trip gallery.

Yesterday morning we left our hotel in Chongquing and boarded our ship, the Victoria Princess, initiating our weeklong cruise down the Yangtze River. This morning we awakened to spectacular views heading through the first two gorges on the way to the Three Gorges Dam, the enormous engineering project that has changed the river. Our Internet service on the ship is a little sketchy, so I will be blogging for you but will not be able to post more photos until we return home next week. Fear not! We'll get a lot more images online!

Tonight Rich Talcott will give his talk about viewing the eclipse. This morning we have good sunshine, but the forecast for the whole region has been bleak. We are all crossing our fingers for clear skies. Tomorrow, following the eclipse, I will give a talk about deep-sky observing, just as a little change of subject.

I'll keep you posted from the river as often as the Internet service will allow! In the meantime, don’t forget to follow our eclipse trips on Astronomy magazine's Twitter page at http://www.Twitter.com/AstronomyMag.

Previous blog: Face to face with Xian’s Terra Cotta Warriors

 

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