Along with the other 186 people on our ship, the Victoria Prince, I found myself reporting from China during our last week with very limited Internet capability. Thus, I could not send images with the final blog posts during the week of July 20. To make up for this, I am now posting a selection of images from the last week of the trip that includes shots of eclipse day . Enjoy! Previous post: We visit a Revolutionary Photo credit: David J. Eicher

Here's my final blog from the China 2009 eclipse tour the Astronomy magazine editors have conducted, along with Melita Thorpe of MWT Associates. Sunday we travel to Shanghai, board a plane in the afternoon, and fly back to Chicago and then to Milwaukee. See all the images from Dave's tour in our solar eclipse 2009 trip gallery . This morning our group of 187, including Senior Editor Rich Talcott and his wife Evelyn, boarded buses in Nanjing...

Today our group of travelers left our ship, climbed aboard buses, and made a 2.5-hour journey from our dock to Huang Shan, Yellow Mountain , a national treasure of China. Although the weather was hardly favorable, with rain coming down strongly or sometimes partial clearing and fog and haze rolling by, we journeyed toward our destination through charming little towns, villages, and cities. The pastoral countryside was amazing in that every farmhouse...

Carefully following weather reports and satellite imagery through the hours leading up to the great Asian solar eclipse , we knew we might well be in trouble. Rather than pushing on eastward to Wuhan, we stopped our ship, the Victoria Princess , at the city of Yichang, well to the east, and had wonderful success. A wisp of cloud hung over the Sun just as first contact occurred, but then it slid to the east, and we had the Sun hanging in a cloudless...

The day following the fantastic total eclipse, our 187 travelers on the Victoria Princess spent a good part of the day in Wuhan, a large city midway between Chongquing and Shanghai. We climbed aboard buses and traveled to the Hubei Provincial Museum to see historical treasures from the region. The name was familiar to me immediately as a mineral collector from Hubeite, an unusual species that was discovered in this province. See all the images from...

Astronomy magazine Columnist and Contributing Editor Stephen James O’Meara sent us this account of the July 22 eclipse from his home in Hawaii: My wife Donna and I had a beautiful eclipse as seen from the Big Island of Hawaii –– even though the Sun was only about 10 percent covered at maximum. We were at the far end of the eclipse track, so not many other populated islands would have seen this event. The sky was perfectly clear, and the eclipse occurred...

** Editor’s note: Dave Eicher prepared this blog just hours before last night’s eclipse. Check out our solar eclipse page to read a recap of Dave’s Twitter ( @AstronomyMag ) updates throughout the eclipse. Stay tuned for a full report and eclipse images coming soon!** As I sit here writing this, it's 6:30 Wednesday morning in China, on ECLIPSE DAY! The weather forecast has been horrible for most of the region, but our ship's captain has docked...

Astronomy magazine Editor Dave Eicher and Senior Editors Rich Talcott and Michael Bakich are in China to witness the eclipse. They will send back live reports via the magazine's Twitter page at http://Twitter.com/AstronomyMag . Not a fan of Twitter? No problem, just go to Astronomy.com's solar eclipse page to follow along. Also, here are three sites that will stream live video of the total solar eclipse: Live Webcast (CHINA) - U. of North...

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...

One of the greatest historical sites in the world lies tucked outside the huge city of Xian, near an obscure “mountain.” The mountain is actually a vast burial mound where Qin Shi Huang, China’s first emperor, is entombed. But no one knew this until the accidental discovery of a vast chamber of terra cotta figures in 1974, which only happened because a local farmer was sinking a deep well. See all the images from Dave's tour in our solar eclipse...