The Great European Eclipse of 1999

Fifteen years ago today, Europe experienced a total solar eclipse with broad similarities to the 2017 American eclipse. It traversed the continent from the northwest to its southeast, it was roughly the same duration (a little more than 2 minutes), and millions of people were able to see this spectacle. 

This is the BBC presentation from that day. Here are some more video links:





I remember that day well. My intended place for observation was in the place of my birth in southern Germany. But on the previous day, the weather forecast for Germany was grim. So I dashed to Austria and drove and drove to escape the cloudy weather. 10 minutes before totality, I finally stopped in a farmer's field very close to the Austrian-Hungarian border and saw the breathtaking corona.

Each total solar eclipse is different and the vision of each is seared in your memory. My impression of this symmetric corona was that it appeared as a ghostly sunflower in the sky.