NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2021 Jan 29, 17:09 -0800
Tomorrow at 4:27pm Eastern US time (2127 UT) the Sun will be at the zenith just three miles south of Tatakoto Atoll in the Tuamotu Archipelago. At that time, any observer on the island could look up and see some spot on the disk of the Sun exactly at the zenith. The island is about the same size and proportion as Conanicut Island, where I live.
When I did a little internet searching on this island, I discovered that the Sun paid the atoll another visit a little more than ten years ago when it was right along the track of a total solar eclipse. Here's a nice account of the eclipse at astronomeer.com. Remarkably the path of totality also ran right across Easter Island less than two hours later. A lucky day for two Polynesian islands!
Frank Reed
