On Wednesday, 29 March 2006 the moon’s shadow swept a narrow band across the globe on a path starting in Brazil and then over the Atlantic Ocean and African Gold Coast, through the Sahara and Mediterranean Sea to Turkey, before continuing up over the Black Sea, The Russian Federation and Kazakhstan before ending in Mongolia.  By the time it reached Southern Turkey, at about 1.54pm, local time, the total eclipse lasted for 3 minutes and 32 seconds at Belek where we were based. Paul was invited to be one of the guest Astronomers for Omega Holidays (the organisers of the Northern Lights Flights) special eclipse 2 day break. It was based in several localities deep inside the main eclipse track as it reached the coast of Turkey just east of Antalya. Paul and Nigel Bradbury were the guest Astronomers based at the Maritim Pine Beach Resort whilst the BBC's Sky at Night team headed by Chris Lintott and Pete Lawrence were at Arsidia with John Barusch and finally Jodrell Banks Prof Ian Morrison and Dr Tim O'Brien were at the Xanthe Hotel.

The following is our personal experience of the event and Lorraine and I would like to thank Omega for involving us in such a wonderful occasion. Click on the images to see the larger format.
Naturally all images are copyrighted either Paul Money, Lorraine Money or Jayne Jevons unless otherwise credited.

The following three charts are courtesy of Fred Espenak of NASA Goddard Spaceflight Centre and show the track at 3 scales.

The Maritim Pine Beach Resort Hotel, Belek Conference Centre and the evening presentation by Nigel Bradbury and Paul Money

The Maritim Pine Beach Resort Hotel - a superb venue	The Pamfilya (Turkish equivalent of Omega Holidays) Ladies wanted a picture of me - Lorraine sits in the background bemused!
The huge conference room which had been reduced in size with partitions!	The biggest screen I have ever had the privilege to use! L-R Rob England of Omega, Rod Tippett, Nigel Bradbury and me
The 650+ members of the audience getting ready to hear Nigel and Pauls talk - the biggest audience I have ever talked to!

General views before, during and after the eclipse in the grounds of the resort.

Nigel gave a running commentary during the eclipse from the beach watch tower. He's the yellow shirt at the centre of the top of the tower.	Lorraine and I set-up with our friends the Bassetlaw AS and this is Pauls equipment. At left the Canon DSLR with a 500mm lens and solar filter, centre is the webcam and a 135mm lens and filter which is coupled to the laptop giving a live view at right.
Lorraine (sat down) with our close friend Jayne behind her, members of Basstelaw AS to their left and two Turkish Hotel  Staff on the right - all enjoying the eclipse from the webcam/ laptop. No alteration to the brightness has been made as this was nearly at Totality and the area was getting noticeably darker and colder.	Paul taking images of the Eclipse with the Canon 300D DSLR  fitted with a 500mm F8 lens and a Mylar Solar Filter. All the Solar Eclipse pictures shown on this page were taken with this set-up.
The laptop and webcam was a great way to show more people without optical aid what was happening. My only regret was that the solar filter was too tight on the webcam lens and I couldn't get it off quick enough and it moved the webcam off the sun completely so I couldn't use it to video the promineces :-(	Lorraine suddenly shouted for us to see the tree we were close to was projecting multiple images of the eclipse sun through the gaps in the leaves and Jayne got a good image - see below.
Our good friend Jayne sent us these images during the final lead up to Totality and they are reproduced with her permission.
Jayne's image of the multiple Crescent Suns - note the particularly good image shown enlarged.	Jaynes friend Dawn observing the Sun safely with Binoculars using Mylar solar filters. Note how dark it's getting as this view was just before Totality
Jayne caught well how dark it was getting in the lead up to Totality.	Rod Tippett's set-up just before Totality began. This image has been lightened to show the telescope which had an H- Alpha filter showing the various promineces around the solar limb. The image was originally as dark as the one of Dawn and the Binoculars
After Totality...
Just 20 minutes after totality and a patch of clouds drifted over the partially eclipsed sun - glad it wasn't 20 minutes earlier!!!
Nigel with a Turkish lady are happy the eclipse went well for everybody.	A very happy Paul and Lorraine after seeing their first Total Solar Eclipse!

The Total Eclipse images
The following were the images taken with the Canon 300D DSLR and the 500mm F8 lens except for the 3rd contact diamond ring which was taken from Jaynes video camera and image processed by Paul. All times are local Turkish time

The Sun just moments before the onset of 1st contact 12:38 Note the small sunspot at left of the disk	Nearly half covered - taken at 13h24m
Almost gone with just 1 minute to go!	Seconds before totality - enlargement showing the limb of the Moon against the crescent of the Sun.
Small Diamond Ring as Totality starts and the Corona begins to show.	The Inner Corona taken with a short exposure, note the activity is mainly East/West with the North and South areas of the Sun fairly quiet - just what you'd expect during Solar Minimum.
Although some images I took were blurred (due I guess to excitement) I forgot to take very short exposures to capture the prominences but this enlargement of one of my slightly blurred  images does show some near the Northern hemisphere of the Sun.	Slightly more of the Corona - taken at 13:56
A longer exposure brings out the Outer Corona with several streamers and in the solar polar regions the magnetic field can be seen. Image taken at 13:57 just before Totality ends.	Much longer exposure bringing out the streamers and outer corona seconds before 3rd contact. Note I have tried to correctly orientate the majority of the images to be consistent hence the dark bands either side of the image.
Jayne captured the 3rd Contact Diamond Ring with this amazing shot from her Video camera as I managed to produce a terrible shaky image (not shown naturally!!)	This sequence has been taken from Jaynes video and processed by Paul to give an amazing set of 4 images. Upper left shows the inner corona. Next shows part of the Chromosphere and several prominences then the initial diamond ring - looking double as several people reprted at the time then fianlly tha main diamond ring. Well done Jayne!
... and it's over :-(   This image taken at 14:03	Haze and high cloud affected the exposures of some of the images coming out of the eclipse so the latter images are slightly brighter than the start. This image at 14:26.
And it's all over for this Total Solar Eclipse with the Sun back to its normal appearance - this view at 15:14
This sequence consists of 11 images from start at top left to end at bottom right with Totality at centre. It is not technically accurate as there should be a larger gap between the images but I like the effect!
An unforgettable experience for Lorraine and myself capped off with this departing image of the Taurus Mountains just after Sunset on March 29th

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