This is the last promise I made to my brother, Ical, who passed away on last October’s end, to see the solar eclipse directly from the right place. This one is an annular solar eclipse which will be visible across the Southern Ocean and Indonesia on January 26, 2009.
The annular phase runs from 06:02:39 UT, when the eclipse begins in the South Atlantic, to the end of the eclipse in the Celebes Sea at 09:54:44 UT, while the maximum eclipse is at 07:58:39 UT. Meanwhile the partial eclipse will be visible over southern Africa, the Indian Ocean and most of Australasia between 04:56:38 UT and 11:00:41 UT.
Here, in Indonesia, the best place to witness this phenomenon is Lampung and places around it in south part of Sumatera. The other great places are Cilegon, Serang, Anyer and places around them for Java, and some places in the middle of Kalimantan. So, please come to those places to be one of many witnesses.


The peak of the eclipse will be as long as 6 minutes (in Sumatera and west area of Java) started at 16.40 (West Indonesia Time/WIB). The process from the first time the sun covered by moon started at 15.21 WIB to 17.52 WIB. So, we have 90 minutes to witness the eclipse and only 6 minutes to start capturing picture for the photographers.


The other thing is how we witness the eclipse. Looking at the Sun is harmful to your eyes at any time, partial eclipse or no. The danger that a partial solar eclipse poses is simply that it may prompt people to gaze at the Sun, something they wouldn’t normally do. The result can be “eclipse blindness,” a serious eye injury that can leave temporary or permanent blurred vision or blind spots at the center of your view.
The simplest safe way to view a partial solar eclipse is to watch the Sun’s image projected onto a piece of paper. Poke a small hole in an index card with a pencil point, face it toward the Sun, and hold a second card three or four feet behind it in its shadow. The hole will project a small image of the Sun’s disk onto the lower card. This image will go through all the phases of the eclipse, just as the real Sun does. Experiment with different size holes. A large hole makes the image bright but fuzzy; a small hole makes it dim but sharp.

The other way is see the image projected from a telescope or binocular. This method is relatively safe and, with it, many people can view the Sun at once. You will need a pair of binoculars or a small telescope, a piece of plain cardboard about 30 centimeters square for the “collar,” and a second piece of white cardboard (or paper) at least 10 centimeters square for the screen. If you use a telescope, you should mount it on a tripod. If you use binoculars, you can hold them in your hand, but it is much more convenient (and you will have a steadier image) if you improvise some sort of stand or tripod to hold them.
Or we could witness the eclipse trough the telescope or binocular which has been equipped by Special sun filter. The filter is to reduce the intensity of the sun light. These filters should be available on astronomy stores.
The last one to witness the eclipse is to make a simple sun filter. But the filter is not to be equipped with optical tools such as binocular, telescope or photo camera. This filter made for direct seeing. Sun filters are safe to use if it have optical density 5 or more. The simplest tools to use are B/W film (Kodak TMAX 100 or Kodak PlusX are tested for witnessing the sun or eclipse directly). Take 1 roll of B/W film, take all the films out and exposed it to the direct sun light for 60 seconds. Process the film as usual and (if you didn’t do the process by yourself) let the person knows that the films are intentionally burn and remind him/her not to cut the films. Then cut the film 5cm x 5cm (or as needed), to make sure it safe to use, use double film for each hole that u made on a piece of paper. Note, don’t use a single film for each hole and don’t use color film because it doesn’t have silver coating to protect our retina.
Last thing; keep your ears on the weather information. And… enjoy the eclipse!

Note: taken from many sources.

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