Isn't there also supposed to be something occuring in August where we'll see another planet (Venus I think), right beside the moon so it will look like there's 2 moons?

I remember that you can get eclipse info from Celestia. Maybe you can find out from there, with some additional mathematical calculations :)

Hey, will us Americans get to see this eclipse? And if so, at what time of day?

Lucky people.

A full eclipse is something I would love to experience before I die. I'll have to travel though as i don't think the next one is going to cross the North of England until i'll well gone, lol.

Thanks, Whiterabbit, for your comment which came quick (so I wasn't surprised to see your name as you wrote several times about your prediligence towards space related topics).
It seems I should add one more company to the 'lucky ones' list: Caisdata (Foxonic, Apr 2009) is based like SourceTec in the province of Wuhan.

And, secondly, after refining my web research I can give for the most interesting cases quite precise duration times. As a result, it's indeed the city of Hangzhou who will eat the biggest piece of the cake.

- Hangzhou: 5.34 min (eTimeInc), 5.31 min (iBit-Lab)
- Shanghai: 5.19 min (shelllessworks), 5.12 min (Desksware)
- Jingmen: 5.08 min (Caisdata)
- Kunshan: 4.38 min (Moyea)
- Chengdu: 3.26 min (Chengdu Yiwo)

***** E n j o y !!! *****

Thanks for the info Mercurius. I remember the event well. I had a set up to capture images of the sun via a type of pin hole camera that reflected an image of the sun onto a large white card. I'm sure i damaged my retina very slightly from that encounter as I can still sualize a small dark sot in the centre of my vision. Thankfully its in my right eye which has very poor vision (without the aid of glasses) I was in the North of England, so only caught a partial eclipse. A friend of mine camped out in Cornwall to see the event, but the area he was in was totally overcast. He experienced the darkening, but saw none of the beauty of the eclipse.

Ten years after the great European eclipse (which, except of the darkening, I "traumatically" failed to watch due to bad weather...) the longest total solar e c l i p s e of the 21st century is going to take place in just very few hours from now - mainly in India and China.
Half a dozen participants in GOTD are based in India, about 50 companies come and came from China. Perhaps it might be interesting to know which ones of these once chose the "perfect location" - in terms of the upcoming great astronomical event.

Starting with the Indian subcontinent, no GOTD participant will be able to watch totality from the office balcony.
Both Uconomix (loc. in Mumbay) which only a couple of days ago gave away uMark Professional and Crave Worldwide (loc. in Aurangabad) having offered back in Jan 2007 DiskAnalyzer, are 240 km distant from the central line of the path of totality.

Not so in China! At least 13 GOTD participants will be lucky enough to watch the eclipse from the office location.
However, Efreesky (MagicTweak, Apr 2008), Keriver (Keriver Image, Jun 2007) and Zero2000 (2nd Speech Center, Oct 2007) all three of which are based in Nanjing/Jiangsu will have to do a 140 km journey for becoming part of the most spectecular phenomenon that nature provides.

The lucky ones are as follows:

- in Chengdu/Sichuan: Ax3 (Sax2, May 2009), Chengdu Yiwo (Partition Master, Apr 2009), Digiarty (WinX Video Converter, July 18), FreeTime (WinX DVD Author, May 2009), IObit (Advanced WindowsCare, Jun 2007), Pearl Mountain (Picture Collage Maker, Mar 2009)
- in Hangzhou/Zhejiang: eTimeInc (eReminder, Nov 2008), iBit-Lab (Cute Password Manager, Oct 2008)
- in Kunshan/Jiangsu: Moyea (PPT to DVD Burner, July 13)
- in Shanghai: Desksware (Power Favorites, Nov 2008), GoldSolution (Easy Macro Recorder, Mar 2009), shelllessworks (ShellLess Explorer, May 2009)
- in Wuhan/Hubei: SourceTec (SWF Quicker, July 14)

The longest totality lasting 5 minutes and slightly more will be being enjoyed by the companies in Hangzhou and Shanghai, but also Moyea in Kunshan can be quite happy. Perceivably shorter than at the other places (but what, after all, means "short" with an eclipse super long like this one) nature's magic will be in Chengdu.

Having done all that research, there is one question left to be answered: When will we finally get on GOTD some specifically scientific giveaways going beyond an Excel add-on? For the moment, we shouldn't care about that question and just let us bewitch by the centry's longest total solar eclipse.