The RGO Guide to the 1999 Total Eclipse of the Sun

The RGO Guide to the 1999 Total Eclipse of the Sun is a thorough and relatively technical sourcebook for all the information that readers of this Journal might require, and should be on every BAA member's bookshelf. Tables of the local circumstances of the partial and total eclipse are given for 165 towns and cities in Britain, and 80 European cities. Good track maps (particularly of Cornwall and the West Country) translate the numbers into reality on the ground, right down to village level. A map of the whole of Britain, similar to that given by Peter Macdonald in the 1995 December BAA Journal, shows the appearance of the maximum partial phase at different locations. There is also a sky diagram of totality, from which we can see that while Venus and Mercury will be prominent near the Sun, Saturn and Jupiter will be close to the Western horizon and Mars will not be visible.