Some of my best pictures of the Total Solar Eclipse of August 11, 1999

On August 8, 1999,  I travelled from Athens, Greece to Austria via Italy in order to observe and photograph the last total solar eclipse of the millenium. It was my first encounter with totality and was very impressed. The weather conditions were poor and I spend the last 2 days prior to the eclipse, chasing the sun hoping for better weather. Finally on August 11, I spend the day in Bad Tantmannsdorf which lied on the line of totallity. Hotels were impossible to find and for 3 days me and my eclipse partner Maria slept in the car.

Most pictures bellow were taken without a protective sun filter since the clouds acted as one. Unfortunatelly totallity was visible for less than a minute instead of the full 2 minutes & 21 seconds. This was the main reason I was unable to photograph all I had planned for. During totallity I lost track of time and only took one picture before the sun started to come back out again. I missed the opportunity to photograph the corona and the "diamond ring" as I intended to.

I drove over 3700Km in total and was unlucky with the weather but things could have been much worse, other sites missed the whole thing. The experience was a great one (made stops in Florence, Venice -where my tripod was stolen- & Vienna) and made my summer. On June 21, 2001 in South Africa, Totallity will last over 4 minutes and if all goes well and I am able to make the trip, I will be much better prepared.

P.S.: On the bottom of the page you can see the Austrian newspaper "Kurier" which on August 12, 1999 ran an article on the total solar eclipse and mentioned my name and that I had travelled from Athens, Greece to observe it. The reporter had seen my liscence plates and interviewed me - great souvenir!