Annular Eclipse of 22 August 1998
Jay M. Pasachoff, Director of the Hopkins Observatory of Williams College, Williamstown, MA, USA, observed the annular eclipse overlooking the South China Sea in Mersing, Malaysia. Dr. Mazlan Othman, Director of the National Planetarium, arranged the site and had 40 of her students from the university present. About 1500 other individuals, including many schoolchildren, were also present.
The sky was partly cloudy with some haze, but almost all the eclipse was visible, including the 2 hours 35 minutes of partial phase and the 2 minutes 45 seconds of totality.
Also present in Mersing was Olivier Staiger of Switzerland (http://eclipse.span.ch) and on the nearby island of Pulau Dayang was James Kevin Ty of the Philippine Astronomical Society (http://www.pworld.net.ph/user/jkty