I have not seen anything in the news—not that I see much news—but Paros will be having a near total eclipse on the 29th. The total eclipse is in a narrow band across North Africa and Asia so I assume it is not getting much play in the “Western” media.

I am quite interested because we lie somewhere about 90% eclipse. Athens is 86.4 % and, of course, the rest of Europe substantially less. Here is a quote from the NASA site:
http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/SEmono/TSE2006/TSE2006.html

On Wednesday, 2006 March 29, a total eclipse of the Sun will be visible from within a narrow corridor which traverses half the Earth. The path of the Moon's umbral shadow begins in Brazil and extends across the Atlantic, northern Africa, and central Asia where it ends at sunset in western Mongolia. A partial eclipse will be seen within the much broader path of the Moon's penumbral shadow, which includes the northern two thirds of Africa, Europe, and central Asia.

Karin and I are not so much interested in building a contraption to look directly at the sun as in observing the changes in light in our environment. It will be so quick I don’t imagine much visual effect or response from the farm animals or wildlife but I will be watching. The 4 minute band is relatively narrow; the 1 minute band is just Southeast of Crete which is just South of us. It is about 200 km wide or 120 miles.

I should do more research ahead of time. We will see. I would like to figure out why the band across the earth appears as an irregular wave. Does anyone know—in layman’s terms?

The NASA site has just too much information, but lots of charts and maps if you want more details.