Jasmine' China Adventure Tours - Eclipse Viewing Site

Jasmine at our viewing site in Jinshanwei, directly in front of our hotel. --Paul Behrens

Introduction to our July 22, 2009 eclipse viewing site

Our chosen site is in the coastal town of Jinshanwei, a suburb of Shanghai about 35 miles from the center of the city, and located just north of the centerline. (See map below.) At this spot we can expect 5 minutes and 53 seconds of totality. Jinshanwei offers us the best likelihood of decent viewing (statistically speaking) on land anywhere along the track, not to mention just about the most convenient viewing imaginable. Observers literally can enjoy our five-star hotel's extensive Western and Chinese buffet breakfast and then walk right outside the front door to the viewing area. The hotel has a large parking area and an adjacent park which we can use for a set-up location. In addition, at the time of our visit to Jinshanwei this past February, there was a large vacant field across the street where we can set up as well. Since the eclipse will be relatively high in the sky at the time of totality, the sightlines are excellent.

Jinshanswei itself has little in the way of tourist attractions, but, as a combination weekend beach resort and outer suburb of Shanghai, it is good place to see something of contemporary middle-class Chinese life. Jinshanwei is less than a hour from Shanghai by public bus on the new expressway, and probably less by private car. At the time of our site investigation visit in February 2008, much of the city seemed to be either under construction or brand-new: there were several beautiful new five-star level hotels (including ours), long lines of high-rise apartment buildings, and even large tracts of California-style single-family homes, complete with two-car garages. (See pictures of the area below.)

The sandy city beach, with its large lagoon enclosed by a massive breakwater, is completely artificial. The shores of Hangzhou Bay, on which Jinshanwei sits, are mostly vast mud flats, and tides there are among the most extreme anywhere, such that much of the shoreline is defended by high seawalls and long jetties. The area surrounding the city is highly industrialized, with large oil refineries, chemical plants and power stations set among low-rise electronics assembly plants and trucking terminals. This made our search for a usable viewing site somewhat challenging; we spent most of two days driving around the area rejecting one potential site after another before realizing that the perfect place was right in front of our eyes.

As for Jinshanwei's weather prospects, as shown on the graph below, historical data give us about a 50% chance of seeing the eclipse in a clear sky. It doesn’t get much better anywhere along the track, although shipboard viewers will have some ability to move into clear areas, something we will more limited in doing. The weather prospects for the eclipse at this time are based solely on long-term statistics, as compiled by the redoubtable Jay Anderson of Winnipeg. A detailed analysis of the prospects for this site can be found at Jay’s excellent site, http://www.eclipser.ca/. The site is near the sea, but not directly on the beach, where sand and wind can be a negative factor (not to mention the crowds of local people who are likely to flock to the city beach to observe the eclipse). But there is a tendency to experience onshore flows of air in the morning hours in the summer, somewhat reducing the prospects of smog from Shanghai and inland cloud buildup.

We will have some ability to move to an alternate viewing site if the primary viewing site at Jinshanwei is threatened by bad weather, although our ability to run may be somewhat limited in extent. We will monitor the weather reports in the days leading up to the eclipse and make a final recommendation the day before eclipse day. If we have to move, our main path will be westward, which would tend to bring us into areas with greater risk of poor weather, although not drastically so. If we do decide that we need to move, we may have to leave quite early in the morning in order to reach a suitable alternate site in time to set up (totality is at about 9:40 in the morning). Fortunately, the surrounding region has an excellent network of highways and expressways to facilitate movement.

Jasmine at our viewing site directly in front of the hotel. The photo was taken looking in the direction of the eclipse, which will be at an altitude of approximately 57 degrees at mid-eclipse.

The view from the hotel park, looking east.

A view of Jinshanwei from our tour hotel, looking southeast, with Hangzhou Bay and offshore islands in the background.

Jinshanwei, looking east from our tour hotel, with new housing developments in the foreground.

Jinshanwei, looking northeast from our tour hotel.

Meet our 2009 Eclipse Tour Team
	Jasmine was born in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province. Her parents are university professors. When she was a teenager, her family moved to Beijing, where she studied English at the Beijing Foreign Language Institute and earned a Master’s in Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Jasmine began leading foreign tour groups in the 1980s, often taking them to then-remote areas of Yunnan. It was on one of those tours, in 1991, that she met her American future husband, Paul Behrens. Jasmine and Paul married in 1993 and now live in Northern California. Jasmine’s Chinese name is Zheng Ou—”Ou” means “seagull.”
	Bill Sorrells is the President of the Peninsula Astronomical Society in northern California. He is a veteran of 13 previous total eclipses, and numerous partial and lunar ones as well. In 1986 he discovered Comet Sorrells (1986n), and has considerable experience photographing the sky. Bill was our tour leader in 2008 for the Silk Road eclipse, and will be joining us again for 2009.
	Brian Day’s hobbies and professional life focus on astronomy. He is a NASA contractor at Ames Research Center where he serves as Education and Public Outreach Lead for NASA’s LCROSS mission to the Moon. For 16 years, he was also chairman of the Foothill College Observatory. Brian and his wife Pam are avid solar eclipse chasers, having traveled around the world to see 8 totals, 5 annulars, and numerous partial eclipses. Following the Moon’s shadow has taken them to such exotic locations as the wilds of Africa, the heights of the Andes, the jungles of Central America, the Australian Outback, the frozen wastes of Northern Mongolia, the beer gardens of Germany, and the Great Wall of China.

2009 Eclipse Tour

C.S.T. Number 2034611-40

Web Design by Brian H. Day

Copyright 2008 by Zheng Ou and Jasmine's China Adventure Tours. All tour descriptions, itineraries and other material on this site are the intellectual property of Zheng Ou and Jasmine's China Adventure Tours and may not be copied or used in any way without their express written permission.