From the Antarctic: Beauty eclipses once-in-a-century show

By SIMON COLLINS at Scott Base

The sky dimmed, but there were no birds to squawk at it, when the moon covered two-thirds of the face of the sun over New Zealand's Antarctic station at Scott Base yesterday.

The only wildlife in the vicinity - a few seals who had found their way above ground from cracks in the sea ice in front of the base - were oblivious to the changing light.

Around the base, staff watched through welding masks as the moon, over two hours, first cut into the left-hand edge of the sun and then moved to the right until the sun looked like a crescent-shaped quarter-moon.

At its peak, the moon blocked out the top two-thirds of the sun, leaving just a small crescent at the bottom.

The change in the light, imperceptible at first, eventually produced an effect similar to late afternoon on a winter's day in New Zealand, dull but never completely dark.

"When I was in my room before, I had to turn the light on. Usually I don't have to," said chef Donna Wightman.

Other staff said it was darker than it gets here even in the middle of a summer night, when the sun is low on the horizon but still shining 24 hours a day.

The change was so slow that most people watched for a few minutes and then went back to their work, going out again for another look half-an-hour or an hour later.

"I didn't take too much notice," said Brad Keegan, who was on a bulldozer clearing snow in front of the base. "I stopped just after 11am and nothing was happening so I carried on going.

"I came back at about 12pm and stopped and took some photos."

Telecom technician Keith Roberts walked around the base with two cameras for most of the two hours, but said the eclipse "didn't really stir me one way or the other".

"It's just one of those events I'd never seen before.

"I've seen it now."

Fish scientist Dr Bill Davison was suitably underwhelmed.

Engineer Dave Mitchell, who has wintered over in Antarctica, said: "It doesn't really spin my disk. Just another eclipse. There are quite a few things that happen down here that are really spectacular, like nacreous [high-level] clouds and auroras in winter."

But radio operator Kirstin Keene said it was cool.

"It was pretty good to see it down here. I'd never seen one before."

Antarctica NZ chief executive Lou Sanson, who observed the event from the Dry Valleys across McMurdo Sound from Scott Base, said the last total solar eclipse in Antarctica was recorded by Captain Robert Falcon Scott in September 1903.

Scott Base received calls from media in Australia, Britain and the United States as well as New Zealand.

Malaysian scientist Dr Zainol Rashid, who was at the base to record radio signals from the eclipse, said there would not be another total eclipse in the Antarctic for another 100 years.