ServiAstro has been offering information and has been webcasting astronomical events of interest - as well as everyone visible from Catalonia - since 2003. This is the result of our task:
Center of the totality phase of the eclipse from Yiwu, China
Credits: ServiAstro (DAM).
On 1st August 2008, there was a total Sun eclipse, whose visibility stripe started in Canada and ended in China, passing close to the north pole, through Siberia and Mongolia.
A team of ServiAstro travelled to Yiwu in China, near to the Mongolian frontier, to live webcast the event via satellite, repeating the 2006 experience in Egypt.
Though we had some technical problems and clouds were menacing the project, at the end we were able to accomplish our aim and offer the whole eclipse. We also managed to obtain some spectacular images of the total-eclipse moment.
Go to the gallery of the Total Solar Eclipse on 1st August 2008, taken from China.
Last image of the event
Credits: ServiAstro (DAM)
By the early hours of the 21st February in 2008, there was a Total Lunar Eclipse visible from Barcelona. Circumstances where similar to the ones we had on the 2007 eclipse, but the it happened later in the night.
Finally, Barcelona's sky, which had been cloudy during the whole day and seemed to have cleared just for the eclipse, ended up covered, making it impossible to finish the live webcast.
Go to the gallery of the Total Lunar Eclipse on 21st February 2008 from Barcelona.
Centre of totality of the Total Lunar Eclipse on 3rd March 2007, as seen from Barcelona
Credits: ServiAstro (DAM)
The night from the 3rd to the 4th March 2007 a Total Lunar Eclipse was visible from Spain at a time quite adequate for observation. Totality ended at 00:57 of 4th.
Weather, in that occasion, was excellent and the webcast was a complete success. Furthermore, thanks to a collaboration with a dutch web page specialized in broadcasting astronomical events (Astronet), our images were demanded more than a million times by people from all around the world.
Go to the gallery of the Total Lunar Eclipse of 3rd and 4th March 2007 from Barcelona.
Moment immediately after totality of the Total Solar Eclipse
on 29th March 2005, from As Sallum, Egypt.
Credits: ServiAstro (DAM)
On 29th March 2006 a Total Solar Eclipse took place. It was observable from a narrow corridor which crossed Africa from South to North and from West to East.
From Catalonia, this event was observable just as a partial eclipse, and ServiAstro faced the challenge of webcasting it from 2 points simultaneously: from Barcelona, as we had done in other occasions, and from Egypt, in a completely new way for us: using a satellite.
Both broadcasts were completely successfull, though the clouds which posed a serious difficulty for us in Barcelona. In the other way around, in Egypt the sky remained completly clear during the whole event.
Annularity of the Solar Eclipse on 3rd October 2005,
from Valencia.
Credits: ServiAstro (DAM) and PAM
This eclipse was a wonderfull chance to offer an unbelievable show through the web and to enjoy it live: the annularity corredor crossed the Iberian Peninsula from Northwest to Southeast, passing near Madrid and just over Bicorp village, in Valencia, among others. Formentera also was into the stripe, but the Moon and the Sun never arrived to a perfect alignment from there and so the ring stripe wasn't regular from Formentera. From Barcelona, the eclipse was seen as a partial.
Apart from the clouds which appeared in Formentera, everything was perfect, as can be seen in each of the 3 galleries we obtained:
Go to the gallery of the Annular Solar Eclipse on 3rd October 2006 taken from...
Transit of Venus on 8 June 2004
Credits: ServiAstro (DAM)
The last Transit of Venus had taken place 122 years ago! Nobody on Earth had observed a Transit of Venus before!
Transits of Venus have been, historically, of a great importance, due to they were for centuries the best method to compute the distance from the Earth to the Sun.
This time we collaborated with the PAM, and so we have three galleries. Although some clouds were present during the first half of the event, we could broadcast it completely.
Total Lunar Eclipse on 4th May 2004
Credits: ServiAstro (DAM).
It was the first time we faced the challenge of webcasting an astronomical event like this. We chose a webcam to offer images very often..., to build a great gallery.
Go to the gallery of the Total Lunar Eclipse on 4th May 2004 from Barcelona
Transit of Mercury on 7th May 2003.
Credits: ServiAstro (DAM).
Lower planets (Mercury and Venus), being nearer to the Sun than the Earth, can pass between it and us. This phenomenon is not produced yearly, as a consequence of the different inclinations of the orbit of each planet and, in fact, is very strange in the case of Venus. When it takes place, from the Earth, a shadow is seen to cross the disc of the Sun.
The Transit of Mercury was the first time we webcast an astronomical event! And although the bad weather we suffered, we could obtain some good images.
Go to the gallery of the Transit of Mercury on 7th May 2003 from Barcelona.
©Víctor Gómez Jiménez and Salvador Ribas Rubio
Information about the copyright
Astronomy and Meteorology Department
University of Barcelona
Contact: serviastro@am.ub.es